Are 690 691 691 barcodes a reliable indicator of Chinese products?

Email | 11/17/08 | self

[dickmc]

Received by E-mail ...........

This may be useful to know when grocery shopping, if it's a concern to you.

The whole world is afraid of China-made "black hearted goods". Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or China ?

Let me tell you . . . if the first 3 digits of the barcode are 690, 691, or 692, the product is MADE IN CHINA ..

471 is Made in Taiwan .

This is our human right to know, but the government and related department never educate the public, therefore we have to RESCUE ourselves.

Nowadays, Chinese businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products "MADE IN CHINA ", so they don't show from which country it is made. However, you may now refer to the barcode, remember if the first 3 digits are 690-692 then it is MADE IN CHINA .

00 - 09 USA & CANADA
30 - 37 FRANCE
40 - 44 GERMANY
49 - JAPAN
50 - UK

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I am not sure if this is strictly true but I did find this bar code primer and info which indicates that that China is 690 to 695 but with the following caution:
What are the country codes? Lots of people have requested the codes. Here is a partial list. Remember, it indicates the country that issued the code, NOT THE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN OF THE PRODUCT.

[Only1choice____Freedom]

ping for later

Good info. Thanks

[SkyDancer]

Mexico?

[conservative cat]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/barcodes.asp

[WestCoastGal]

.

[KoRn]

If it’s sitting on a full car lot, with no one driving it, it was made in Detroit...

[Gondring]

Also, from the FAQ:

Does the barcode number indicate the country of origin of a product?

No it doesn't. The 3-digit prefix code indicates which numbering organization has allocated the bank of numbers to the company. For example, a company may have it's headquarters in South Africa. The EAN organization in South Africa has the code "600", but all the products of the company may be manufactured in England. The English-made products would still have the "600" prefix code. The prefix code is a way to have 70-plus EAN member organizations issuing numbers without having to worry about duplicate numbers. A list of country codes can be found here.

[conservative_guyz]

MADE IN CHINA usually works pretty good

[scrabblehack]

Off topic but I had this vision of some tech guy back in the 1960’s getting a class A internet address — which was actually 255^3 = 16 million internet addresses.

I can just imagine an exchange between him and his boss.

“Hey boss, I got us a Class A internet address”
(substitute ARPANET if you like)
“A class A internet address? I’m not impressed.”
“But you see, boss, it’s really 16 million internet addresses.”
“16 million internet addresses? What am I going to do with 16 million internet addresses?”
“One day they’ll be worth something.”
“Wake me up when they are.”

40 years later, I see some of the class A holders have (I assume) sold off some of their addresses.

I’m more of a programmer than an internet guy so I’m sure someone will correct my vision.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Bar codes are a pretty archaic way to identify products. They hold just a little data, when they could hold a lot:

http://www.makebarcode.com/specs/speclist.html

(see 2-dimensional bar codes)

More complicated bar codes could include not only where a product was manufactured, but when, when it will expire, what lot it was produced with, who inspected it for quality, even an individual item number and all sorts of other information. Such a bar code could hold up to 2,000 alphanumeric characters. Everything in this comment, including spaces and carriage returns is less than 600 characters.

[Spktyr]

Dammit, check the internet before you post trash like this. BAR CODES DO NOT INDICATE COUNTRY OF ORIGIN!!!!!!

[Gondring]

:-)

1970s, though.

But the thought wouldn’t have just been 16 million addresses—it was the prestige of having one of those low numbers, much like how Delaware license plate craze started. Since they were sequential, those who got cars first got low numbers. But DE allows transfer...so there are now situations like the $675,000 for the “6” plate, similar to the selloff of IP addresses.

Heck, even 4-digit plates go for thousands of dollars, tens of thousands if cool numbers.

[scrabblehack]

I think in some states, the governor gets “1.”

[Kevmo]

bmflr

[Gondring]

I think in some states, the governor gets “1.”

In DE, the Governor gets "1"
The Lt. Gov gets "2"
The Sec. State gets "3"