ez054098
The SN is D22054
Disco Drive
Hmmmmmm.... Mine is P19054 but my seat tube cut out faces backwards?
I guess they are both May '94?
ez054098
So what does the "D" and the "P" mean?
Disco Drive
Sadly, I don't think even Dean could answer that. Will have to be an enigma.....
Double-E F
Hmm, the serial number on my, alleged 1994, Dean is D21108, so there doesn't really seem to be any logic behind the numbering
Disco Drive
The plot thickens....
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Back in 1994, Dean frames were made by TST, later known as TiSport, sometimes wrongly referred to as Sandvic (the company was though part of the Sandvic group at one time). TST was a very good builder, and made frames for many top brands, most famously perhaps the Kona Hei Hei and King Kahuna.
These serial numbers are in the standard TST format. The D stands for Dean, 22, 19 and 21 stand for the size of the frames, andD22054 is the 54th size 22 Dean they had built. I can't explain the P, unless it is possibly an indistinct D that looks like a P? There is no indication of date of build in TST SNs.
It seems that you all got in at the right time, before Dean starting building their own frames. Over on mtbr, there is a really hair-raising thread with a catalogue of complaints from many owners about the more recent frames and the really appalling bad service, failure to keep promises, repair broken frames in a reasonable time and abuse in place of service. I have really never read anything like it! Fortunately for you guys, TST frames have a very good reputation for build quality and long life.