Eye Lighting has apparently migrated to China for some of their lamp production.

Ugh, the last thing I want to see is more business going to China with what's going on right now. When was that lamp made?

Not sure, it is on Ebay. I see 52/97 on the label but I do not think that is the 52nd week of 1997.

I was thinking it was probably made more within the past few months or so than being 22 years old.

Iwasaki has made lamps in China for a very long time, they set up a factory in the northern city of Dalian I think sometime in the 1990s.  Certainly by the early 2000s all of the company's mercury arc tubes were being made in Dalian with some still being exported to Japan and USA for outer-jacketing.  They also make outstanding quality halogen lamps there.

I heard the Iwasaki has their own factory though and maintains a much more direct supervision of the manufacturing process instdrop signifiead of using a contract manufacturer so that might explain why the quality didn't drop significantly.

The pictured lamp looks way newer than 1997. The (Hg) mark was only required after 2003 and the white label and the ink stamp on the sleeve look at lot more modern than something from the 90s. So yeah,  it looks like it was made in the last few years.

All of my Iwasaki MV lamps had a date code near the etch but I can't discern the date code from the pictures one.

In your photo, to the right of the etch should be another set of numbers/letters . There should be "C E " , the Hg in the circle and the date code should be above all that. At least the EYE lamps I have are that way .