[ColinTheAmpMan1]

OK, so I've dug an email out of my collection which came from the Tekscopes Forum. It regrettably doesn't refer to gear that wasn't produced at Beaverton and was essentially a reply to an enquiry as to whether Tek serial-numbers had any information on the date of production. I repeat the text here:

"I did work at Tek for nearly 20 years. The serial number system is simple, but does not incorporate manufacturing date.
The leading letter is the location of manufacture. “B” represents product manufactured in Beaverton. The following six digit numeric field is the actual serial number, starting with 000101. Major modifications may roll the fifth digit. So a normal sequence could be for example B001294, B001295, B010001, B010002... In older times, Tek did not put a break in the serial numbers, but this requires the documentation updates follow the actual serial number where the change was made, as it is difficult to accurately predict the exact serial number the supply chain will implement the change in advance.
As I had written previously, production supervisors did keep logs of the serial number output by week, but this data was not uploaded into central data bases. Perhaps this has changed with recent production, which for the most part has totally moved outside of the US.
- Steve ".

Perhaps this shines a little light on the topic.
Colin.