So I would say unit #1240 manufactured January 2001.

Nope. There's not enough digits in that serial number. There's no such thing as a month number of zero, so it can't be the leading-zeroes problem.

Be very suspicious of that player. If you actually won the auction, check the serial number in the firmware's "about" menu when you get it.

Edit: Oh wait. The serial wasn't 101240, it was 10101240. I was looking at the reply, not the original message.