How To Find Out If Something Is Stolen By Serial Number
Every bit of camera gear you own has a unique serial number to identify it. It is what you’ll use to prove that a particular camera or lens belongs to you if you ever need to make an insurance claim or report something stolen. Here’s how to find your gear’s serial numbers.
- How To Find Out If Something Is Stolen By Serial Number Search
- How To Find Out If Something Is Stolen By Serial Number Check
- How To Find Out If Something Is Stolen By Serial Number Lookup
- How To Find Out If Something Is Stolen By Serial Number Lookup
Jump to Finding the IMEI and MEID Numbers - Review your iPhone's IMEI and MEID numbers. The number to the right of the 'IMEI' heading is. Search items by serial number, vehicle identification number, product, or brand. Stolen-Property can also help you create an inventory of your property. Simply upload product identifying information such as photos, serial numbers, and receipts, and the website will store the information for you. You are about to buy a second hand item or you just found something on the street, it is always a good idea to check if it is reported as lost or stolen. Just enter any identifying information like serial number, plate number, VIN, IMEI or anything else that is unique to the item type you want to check for. Stolen Register Check if lost or stolen Check if an item is reported as lost or stolen by entering any identifying information, such as Serial Number, IMEI, VIN, MAC, etc. In case you don't have complete identifying information, like partial plate number or partial serial number, you can freely search and browse items that are stored.
It’s best to write all your serial numbers down as soon as you buy a new bit of kit. I personally use the free service Lenstag to record them. This way, you have access whenever and wherever you need them.
While your camera’s serial number is embedded in any image you take, the serial number of your lenses—or any other gear like your tripods or filters—isn’t. If you don’t have them written down, we’ll look at some ways you might be able to recover them, even if you don’t have your gear any more.
Finding Serial Numbers On Your Gear
The simplest way to find the serial number is to inspect your camera and lenses. It’s almost certainly printed, stamped, or engraved on them.
On your camera, you’ll most likely find a small sticker on the bottom near the tripod mount. This displays manufacturing information, as well as the serial number. In most cases, the serial number will be printed in black on a silver section. There might also be a “No.”, “Serial:”, “S/N.”, or some other indicator printed there.
On your lenses, you will normally find the serial number in one of two places: the side of the lens barrel or somewhere underneath the mount.
Here’s an example of the former.
How To Find Out If Something Is Stolen By Serial Number Search
And here’s an example of the latter.
Be very thorough when you look for serial numbers. As you can see in the image above where the number is on the lens barrel, they can be quite faint and hard to find. There might also be some other manufacturing numbers, so your best bet is to just record everything if you have any doubts.
Finding Serial Numbers On Receipts and Product Packaging

If your gear is missing, the best place to find the serial number is on any product packaging. A good camera shop will normally print it on any receipts too.
Root out any boxes you have left and look for a sticker. It will most likely say something like “No.”, “Body No.”, “S/N.”, or the like. Here’s the one for my camera.
If you can’t find the box, look for the receipt. My favorite camera shop is old school so they’ve handwritten in the serial number. Most places will print it.

If you can’t find the box or receipt, there’s a chance the store you bought it from might still have the information. My local camera shop keeps a record of all their sales especially so people can retrieve things like serial numbers if they need to. Reach out to where you bought your gear and see if they can help.
And one last tip. When you buy new gear and decide to throw away the box, grab a pair of scissors, cut out the part with the serial number and other information, and stick it in a file folder somewhere. Tpb game of thrones.
Finding Your Camera’s Serial Number Through EXIF Data
Your camera’s serial number, in some form, will be embedded in the EXIF data of your images. You can either use your operating system’s built in tools or an online viewer like Get-Metadata. I actually prefer Get-Metadata because it displays absolutely everything in a single window rather than across a few tabs, so that’s what I’m going to use to demonstrate.
Drag and drop an image you’ve taken with the camera onto Get-Metadata, and then click “Start Analyzing File” to upload it. A RAW image is best but this should work with any file from which you haven’t removed the metadata.
You’ll be presented with a full, alphabetized list of every bit of metadata in the file.
What you’re looking for is a value called Serial Number, Camera ID, or something similar. Go through the list value by value if you can’t find it.
Depending on your camera, it could be under Internal Serial Number.
How To Find Out If Something Is Stolen By Serial Number Check
If this is a case, the number might not match the number printed on the box, but it is still a unique identifier for the camera. Mario kart 64 rom download pc. The manufacturer should be able to convert the Internal Serial Number into the regular one if they don’t match, so contact them for support.
As you can see, the best thing you can do is just take down the serial number of any new gear you buy as soon as you get home. If you haven’t already, go and record it now before something happens. While it’s possible to recover it after your gear has been stolen, it’s a much bigger pain in the ass.
If you’re buying a used phone, there’s always been one critical thing to look out for: whether the device is stolen. And finding that out is getting a bit easier today. The US wireless industry, through its trade group the CTIA, has launched a tool called the Stolen Phone Checker, which lets you look up whether a phone has been reported lost or stolen.
The site works by looking up a device’s IMEI, MEID, or ESN — unique codes that get assigned to every phone. These are sometimes printed on the back of phones, like the iPhone, but in other cases they can be found somewhere deep in the settings menu.
How To Find Out If Something Is Stolen By Serial Number Lookup
Checking this out before buying a used phone is important for a handful of reasons. But perhaps the simplest is that if the phone you get turns out to be lost or stolen, it pretty much won’t work. For several years now, US phone carriers have kept a shared database of stolen phone IDs, and they won’t allow those devices to be connected to their network.
How To Find Out If Something Is Stolen By Serial Number Lookup
The CTIA’s tool isn’t the first of its kind. There are a handful of third-party lookup tools out there — like this one from Swappa — and the big carriers have their own, too. But it sounds like the Stolen Phone Checker is being positioned as the canonical site for looking these things up. And if nothing else, it has the easiest name to remember. So if you’re buying a device off Craigslist, eBay, or some other used phone dealer, be sure to check one of these sites first.