Home / Proof Marks / Italian date code — Roman numerals

Italian date code — Roman numerals

Italian proof marks and date codes · 1954-1970, with returns to the system in 1971-1974.
What it looks like
A small Roman numeral — XI, XIV, XIX — near the proof marks.
Where it is on the gun
Frame or barrel flat.
Date range
1954-1970, with returns to the system in 1971-1974.

What it tells you

What this mark authorises you to say

The year of proof expressed in Roman numerals, in use from 1954 to 1970. Before that the system ran differently in each period: from 1945 to 1953 the year was simply written in Arabic numerals, Roman and Arabic were combined in 1971, 1972 and 1973, and Roman numerals returned for 1974. Reading a Roman numeral as a modern date is a common and specific error.

What it does not tell you

What this mark does NOT say

It is not a date of manufacture, and it is not the year minus 1900 or any other arithmetic shortcut. The numeral is the year’s conventional Roman form — XIV is 1966, not 1914.

Sources for this page

Every claim above is attributed. The class of source is shown with each one, because a national proof house and an anonymous forum table are not the same evidence — and on proof marks the difference matters.

Reading marks to identify and date a gun

Proof marks name the test and the era. The serial number, where a maker published a browsable chart, can name the year. The lookup cites the threshold behind every result.

Open the serial number lookup

Other italian proof marks and date codes

Mark descriptions observed and verified 2026-10-14. Proof marks are stamped by hand on guns up to a century old; a photographed stamp and a description in a book are not the same evidence. If a mark on your gun does not match anything here, that is a real answer — see the notes on unidentified marks.