Beretta firearms produced in Italy carry a proof mark for the year of production. The chart below is used to identify the year by this mark. For recent pistols this mark is usually located on the frame near the trigger guard, for older pistols, the mark is on the slide or on the frame behind the grip area. Shotguns have this mark stamped on the barrel near the chamber. You may need to remove the barrel to read the mark.
On some older firearms, produced between 1925 to1954, the actual date was stamped instead of a code mark. In this case the date can be located near the test proof marks on the frame. The exception to this occured during the regime of Benito Mussolini. The Italian Proof House used a roman numeral system marking the year of his reign which began with "I" in 1922. The first Beretta firearm using this dating system was the Model 1934 pistol (introduced in 1935), thus the year was indicated as XIII (usually marked on the slide) and refering to the 13th year of Mussolini's regime. This practice ended in 1945 with XXIII at the close of World War Two and the chart below takes up from that point. It should be noted that some wartime production firearms were void of any marking to indicate the production date.
We have also seen markings where roman and numerical figures are combined, for example XX7 for 1971, XX8 for 1972 and XX9 for 1973.
MARK
YEAR
I or 1
1945
II or 2
1946
III or 3
1947
IV or 4
1948
V or 5
1949
VI or 6
1950
VII or 7
1951
VIII or 8
1952
IX or 9
1953
X
1954
XI
1955
XII
1956
XIII
1957
XIV
1958
XV
1959
XVI
1960
XVII
1961
XVIII
1962
XIX
1963
XX
1964
XXI
1965
XXII
1966
XXIII
1967
XXIV
1968
XXV
1969
XXVI
1970
XXVII or XX7
1971
XXIII or XX8
1972
XXIX or XX9
1973
XXX
1974
AA
1975
AB
1976
AC
1977
AD
1978
AE
1979
AF
1980
AH
1981
AI
1982
AL
1983
AM
1984
AN
1985
AP
1986
AS
1987
AT
1988
AU
1989
AZ
1990
BA
1991
BB
1992
BC
1993
BD
1994
BF
1995
BH
1996
BI
1997
BL
1998
BM
1999
BN
2000
BP
2001
BS
2002
BT
2003
BU
2004
BZ
2005
CA
2006
CB
2007
2008