$200 for a black big muff?
pshhhh haha

Not super important, but circa ’98, meaning around that time. They may have been in production in that color in ’97, and I know retailers still had some as late as 2001, but that’s as close as I have been able to nail the time down based on info I have and dates people have told me they bought them new. The first time I personally saw that the green had changed to black was 1998 or 1999.

Did it have that Carling switch when you got it?

I’m sure that is a date code, but I don’t know if it is a code for the pedal build, or just something the sheet metal maker or the coating factory added to date their work. I have several black Russians with these stickers, two in the large black box like yours. One has the same date as yours, but different circuit board color and different cap and transistor types. That tells me this may not be a final build date code. The St. Petersburg factory may have gone through a lot of different circuit board parts in one week though, so who knows.

I should probably add a note about the date stickers to the website.