SCPH - 1000 Serial Numbers Research

[SWAGMASTER_69]

Hello everyone!

I'm making a little research about our beloved PlayStation.

I want to find the lowest and highest SCPH - 1000 Serial Numbers aka OG PlayStation.

So far I've been taking pictures from online auctions and putting them all in one folder, writing down all the data.

The lowest serial I've stumbled upon so far is A5354334 and highest is A6596575



But here's a weird one. So far I've only found one of theese and it's a legit SCPH - 1000 (I've saved all the pictures) but it's serial number is...K9357323 ??? What even is this thing? The number is insanely high and I've never seen a serial number beginning with K! It has silver stickers in the disk tray too!


UPDATE: Found one more,K9354891


And one more. K9354337. This one has silver stickers in the disk tray!


Even more interesting detail is that reports suggest that PS1 sold 100k units in it's launch day, and 2 million units in 6 months. Considering that PS1 was only sold in Japan at the time and the next domestic revision is SCPH 3000 that came out around 21/07/1995 - more than 7 months into PS1'S lifecycle, that means that...I don't know what that means!
I didn't document SCPH 3000 Yet but a random one gives a A6758224 - not too far away from a A6596135 SCPH 1000 Unit...

Funny, but my personal SCPH-1000 A5623346 Says it was purchased in Tokyo in the middle of 1997 on the box. The shop exists even today. But 97 is waaay too late for a low-number SCPH-1000. Was it lost in the backrooms or something? XD
VRAM is made in November 1994, GPU and DRAM made in December 1994, but the CPU was made in January 1995.
Board type is PU-7 1-655-322-12A
Laser unit KSM-440AAM
It also features a mismatched Serial number on the inner metal shielding,which is for some reason usual for early units, reading 5623390, which is 44 more than the serial number on the console and the box.


A6596575 - A5354334 is only 1 242 241 Units. It's a subject to change of course, as I'm still counting, but I'm curious of what you all know / have to share about all of this

What special serial numbers did you encounter?

I'm updating this post with fresh data as I find more consoles

[SWAGMASTER_69]

I've been also trying to narrow down some more info that I can see. Of course, boards and revisions are the most interesting, but you can't usually see them in auction photos.
However, so far:
Last known confirmed SCPH 1000 With Black Disc Tray Stickers: A5462633

As for Silver stickers and no stickers in disk tray, things are weird. Maybe some people were peeling them off, but

A5644510 Silver Stickers
A5656484 No stickers
Everything in-between has stickers or don't for some weird reason. But most consoles don't
A6270024 Silver Stickers (Latest console with stickers I've found)

[SWAGMASTER_69]

~PSXLoVeR95~ shared some data on his SCPH 1000 here a while back.

His unit is A6323386 and has CPU that was made 14th week of 1995
My unit is A5623346 and has CPU that was made 3rd week of 1995

This means that somewhere between 15 January and 4 April of 1995 Sony produced 700 040 units of SCPH-1000. That's a lot of consoles!

Although, I still don't get their Serial number interpritation. Why even the lowest currently known console starts with A53XXXXX? Why not A0? Or A50? It's impossible to find anything as early as even the A5354334. It's the only A53 unit I ever saw! But that wouldn't suggest that this was already a 395 358th unit? That's way too much even as a giveaway item for workers etc...

[SWAGMASTER_69]

Found an early disassembled unit.

A5407088

Motherboard is PU-7 1-655-322-11 - The earliest retail version documented.
CPU is the oldest component, made on Week 48 1994. This is literally the PS1 launch week, so that suggests that this unit was sold around the end of December - January, by which time (maybe, we only know it sold 100 000 on December 3rd) around 200 000 - 300 000 units were sold already which further proves that there could be Units earlier than the A53 serial number...

[SWAGMASTER_69]

A5623346 Has a PU-7 12A board and CPU made week 03 1995.
Found a PU-7 12B board online with identical CPU. That would suggest that this was pretty much the moment that the new motherboard went into production!

[SWAGMASTER_69]

Something just crossed my mind: DTL-H1000 Units must have been built simultaneously with the first batch of SCPH-1000 or even a little earlier,right? They even share the same PU-7 motherboard?

Well, after doing a little research I've come to see that all DTL-H1000 units have serial numbers like 3XXXXX. (300543,301501,305065 etc.)


My net Yaroze unit has a serial number 300924


Heck, even the oldest examples of PS1 hardware in the world - First development workstations, have serials that begin with a 300xxx for no reason




And after looking at a lot of SCPH-1000 Units I still couldn't find any that were earlier than A53XXXXX. And only 9 units within A53XXXXX Range at all. Maybe that would suggest that the actual production numbers of SCPH-1000 begin from A5300001? (well,kind of?)

Cause there's no clear reason to label DTL-H1000 units as 300543 instead of 000543.


That would suggest that, for example, SCPH-1000 A5354334 is actually Unit 54 334, which is kind of believable, considering all the info I've gathered so far and the fact that they've sold 100 000 units in the launch day...

VILLAIN has posted on these forums before that his unit A5376120 was indeed purchased in December 1994. He also pointed out that some collectors claim that numbers can go Sub A53 and the initial numbers are A50, but there's no real evidence of that anywhere on the web.


---UPDATE---

Yeah, it all makes sense now! If VILLAN's unit A5376120 was sold in December of 1994 and is, supposedly , a unit 76 120, then my A5623346 that was built in early January is a unit 323 346. That would totally make sense in terms of sales figures and distribution! So if the theory is right, the first SCPH - 1000 ever built should have a A5300001 Serial number!

But then, Wikipedia page suggests that SONY has sold 2 000 000 units in first 6 months of PS1 lifecycle, and at the time it was only sold in japan and only SCPH-1000 revisions were available. Unit A6323386 has a CPU that was made 14th week of 1995, beginning of April, which is the 5th lifecycle month. My theory would make it a unit 1 023 385, and I don't think that sony has sold an additional million units in next two months.

A6596575 is the highest serial I've found so far (excluding mysterious K units) and that would make it the 1 296 574 unit sold.

So, my theory is not perfect. But even if we add 300 000 units by suggesting that the first console came with A5000001 Serial number, it's still not enough. Maybe they've made up that number as a part of advertisement? I think SONY would use any opportunity to promote PlayStation, it was a brand new product and a big gamble for them at the time...

---Update---

The theory works perfectly with every single unit I've seen so far, manufacturing dates and sales figures. The first retail SCPH - 1000 ever should have a serial A5000001 and any console within A53 range is one of the first 100 000 console batches ever. The mystery is solved, unless we stumble upon some weird unit. But considering how many I've seen so far, It's safe to say that my theory is right.

[SWAGMASTER_69]

Another weird unit found.
A5649741 (later than mine A5623346) has the same motherboard (PU-7 1-655-322-12) but it's CPU was made...50th week of 1994 (middle of December) while mine was early January. They are only 26 395 units apart, which is not too much, but still weird, like, they were mixing them up in one big box of CPU's in the factory?

Just like metal shields. So far there isn't a single SCPH - 1000 Units without a mismatched serial on it's inner metal shield. The mismatch is also random, ranging from 10 to 200!

[SWAGMASTER_69]

Considering mysterious K9 - series SCPH-1000 Consoles: Something has to be different about them, but they must have been produced alongside A5 units right in the silver sticker era. I have to source one and disassemble for science, but they are extremely rare. Maybe someone already has one in their collection?

[SWAGMASTER_69]

Pictures of the oldest Retail PS1 confirmed in existence - SCPH - 1000 A5354334 - Unit 54 334 ever made.