Don't believe the sticker will give manufacture date of an individual saw, its an EPA sticker only, the serial # is stamped above the bar mount between the bar and the muffler. You need an expert to chime in and decode the serial #, I'm no expert but someone will help you with that I'm sure. Love my Ms440, ran it ext to an MS 460 this week and it actually did better as far as I'm concerned and I built both from scratch. The 460 was a gift to my friend for his help with a home project of mine, so we took them both out on Friday and stabbed up some cedar for future projects, the 440 is lighter but just as strong with the mill, we put both thru about 3 hours each of mill time so they got ran hard and performed well, I hear the 440- 460 hybrid is even better but for now I'll stick with my muffler modded 440 with a gasket delete, that's all I did!