diff --git a/spacy/vocab.pxd b/spacy/vocab.pxd
index e491a48e3..55f69bb6c 100644
--- a/spacy/vocab.pxd
+++ b/spacy/vocab.pxd
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ cdef class Vocab:
     cdef public object data_dir
     cdef public object get_lex_attr
     cdef public object pos_tags
+    cdef public object serializer_freqs
 
     cdef const LexemeC* get(self, Pool mem, unicode string) except NULL
     cdef const LexemeC* get_by_orth(self, Pool mem, attr_t orth) except NULL
diff --git a/spacy/vocab.pyx b/spacy/vocab.pyx
index 939ea9db3..6f711260b 100644
--- a/spacy/vocab.pyx
+++ b/spacy/vocab.pyx
@@ -47,16 +47,17 @@ cdef class Vocab:
 
         tag_map = json.load(open(path.join(data_dir, 'tag_map.json')))
         lemmatizer = Lemmatizer.from_dir(path.join(data_dir, '..'))
-
+        serializer_freqs = json.load(open(path.join(data_dir, 'serializer.json')))
         cdef Vocab self = cls(get_lex_attr=get_lex_attr, vectors=vectors, tag_map=tag_map,
-                              lemmatizer=lemmatizer)
+                              lemmatizer=lemmatizer, serializer_freqs=serializer_freqs)
 
         self.load_lexemes(path.join(data_dir, 'strings.txt'), path.join(data_dir, 'lexemes.bin'))
         if vectors is None and path.exists(path.join(data_dir, 'vec.bin')):
             self.repvec_length = self.load_rep_vectors(path.join(data_dir, 'vec.bin'))
         return self
 
-    def __init__(self, get_lex_attr=None, tag_map=None, vectors=None, lemmatizer=None):
+    def __init__(self, get_lex_attr=None, tag_map=None, vectors=None, lemmatizer=None,
+                 serializer_freqs=None):
         if tag_map is None:
             tag_map = {}
         if lemmatizer is None:
@@ -67,6 +68,7 @@ cdef class Vocab:
         self.strings = StringStore()
         self.get_lex_attr = get_lex_attr
         self.morphology = Morphology(self.strings, tag_map, lemmatizer)
+        self.serializer_freqs = serializer_freqs
         
         self.length = 1
         self._serializer = None
@@ -75,11 +77,7 @@ cdef class Vocab:
         def __get__(self):
             if self._serializer is None:
                 freqs = []
-                if self.data_dir is not None:
-                    freqs_loc = path.join(self.data_dir, 'serializer.json')
-                    if path.exists(freqs_loc):
-                        freqs = json.load(open(freqs_loc))
-                self._serializer = Packer(self, freqs)
+                self._serializer = Packer(self, self.serializer_freqs)
             return self._serializer
 
     def __len__(self):