The ESP Guitar Company

Hi guys I bought an ESP F-254 forest bass got it for not a lot of money it even came with it's own fitted case but it needed lots of work the electrics where dead needed new strings needed a new bridge etc its quite a high spec one comes with 3 bar active EQ. My question is about the serial number ive got it all fixed up and running and ive just tried to decode the serial number its sort of had me scratching my head a bit the number is IR 0516316 ive decoded it be 05/01/1996 this is a lot older than I thought it was. All im asking is can anyone confirm this is correct or am I missing something cheers in advance.

Alun