Our duct tape wallets have an industry first serial number system, that shows the date of manufacture, version of the wallet, and the ordinal number of the wallet produced. We have provided the technical details below, but also have a converter to a human readable format. With your wallet's revision, you can check for recommended additional care to insure a longer life, suggested modifications, or other information.
This page is still being written. Check back soon :-). However, the specification is now finalized, although I'm not certain if I wrote it down properly. Hope for a parser some day.
Our serial numbers are an 80 bit hash comprised of 20 hexadecimal characters, printed on the bottom left of the wallet relative to the open side.
This specification is copyrighted 2009 by Teran McKinney, but is released to the public domain.
The layout is the following in binary (with example data):
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
0000 | 0000 000 | 1 001|0 1001 | 1101 0111 | 1|000 0000
8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.
| 0000 0000 0000 0000 0001 | 0001 | 0000 | 1001 | 0100 | 0110 | 0000
1. Serial format version number. The rest of the format can be changed as long as these first 4 bits indicate the version of the serial format used. 0x00 is #1, so it is incremented giving versions of 1-16. The rest of this document assumes format version 1.
2. 7 bits for the year of the item's creation, with an epoch of 2009. Thus, 0x00 is year 2009, while 0x0A would be the year 2019.
3. 4 bits for the month of the item's creation, with 0x01 being January, and 0x0C being December. Thus, 0x09 is September.
4. 5 bits for the day of the item's creation, with 0x01 being the first of the month, and 0x1F being the 31st of the month. Thus, 0x09 is the ninth, so the date that this serial represents is 2009-09-09.
5. This is an arbitrary product ID, 8 bits in width. 0xD7 is for duct tape wallets.
6. This is an experimental or prototyping bit. If it is set, it means that the product is a prototype building off of the version (#7, coming up next). Thus, 0x01 means that this wallet is a prototype.
7. This is the 7 bit version field. 0x00 is 1 and 0x80 is 128. This serial number's version is 1. This and the product ID can affect the ordering and usage of the final 24 bits.
8. This is the serial number (as an ordinal number) for the product. It is the nth product of its type produced. This was the first wallet made according to the serial number.
So far 56 bits have been used, leaving 24 bits for product options. The following assumes a product ID of 0xD7, or a duct tape wallet, as in our case.
9. 4 bits for wallet size. This shows the size of the wallet. For now, only 0x01 is defined, which is standard (and is shown in the example serial number). This field may also be set to 0x0F if the wallet is custom enough that the following fields don't apply (and are thus set to zero). For efficiency reasons, reading the serial may stop here if a 0x0F is hit.
10. 4 bits for wallet style. 0x00 indicates a bi-fold, and 0x01 indicates a tri-fold. The example wallet is thus a bi-fold.
The next three 4 bit segments are for color options. The following are defined as colors:
0x00: Red
0x01: Orange
0x02: Yellow
0x03: Green
0x04: Blue
0x05: Purple
0x06: White
0x07: Silver (or grey, original duct tape color)
0x08: Brown
0x09: Black
11. 4 bit color field for the exterior of the wallet. This wallet's exterior is 0x09, and is thus black.
12. 4 bit color field for the interior of the wallet. This wallet's interior is 0x04, and is thus blue.
13. 4 bit color field for the bill fold area of the wallet. This wallet's bill fold is 0x06, and is thus white.
14. These last 4 bits are reserved for future use.
If you've been able to follow along, you can decode the serial number (00129D78000001109460) as:
Having the format verson 1, the product being made on 2009-09-09, being a duct tape wallet, being a prototype building off of version 1, being the first duct tape wallet made, being the standard size, being a bi-fold, having a black exterior, having a blue interior, and having a white bill-fold area.
Thanks for reading, and great job for surviving :-)
