Japan Two letter/digit marks: are these time marks?

[JapanX]

At last!

Two orders issued in the same year.

Even the class of the orders is the same.

Two 4^th class sacred treasures orders from 1983.

Two orders from the same year in the same class but with two different mint marks.

One has JE and the other has DE mark.

Let’s examine them

[JapanX]

JE specimen

This one was awarded to Tauchi Satoshige on April 25, 1983.

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

Doc

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

DE specimen

This one was awarded on July 15, 1983 to our colleague Pieter.

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

Doc

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

[JapanX]

Well, if these JE and DE are time marks, then why two orders that were issued practically together (time gap is less than three months) have two different marks?

Maybe E stands for the year and J and D for the months?

But why then J specimen was issued before D specimen (I personally undertook special inspection of the english alphabet )

So what are these?

Tech marks?

P.S. Special thanks to Rich and Pieter for exellent photos and info about the marks

[fukuoka]

Nick, I thought it was a 'JE' but upon magnification I can see it is indeed a 'DE.' This consistency suggests that you were correct in thinking these indicate the year of manufacture.

[JapanX]

Aha!

Thanks a lot Rich!

With such void stamping D indeed looks like J (or even like O)

So these are time marks after all!

Hurrraaah!

One less mystery on our hands!

P.S. Dieter gonna like this, since he always liked this "time marks" hypothesis while I was a little bit skeptical (to put it very mildly ) about it.

Edited April 19, 2013 by JapanX

[Dieter3]

Aha!

Thanks a lot Rich!

With such void stamping D indeed looks like J (or even like O)

So these are time marks after all!

Hurrraaah!

One less mystery on our hands!

P.S. Dieter gonna like this, since he always liked this "time marks" hypothesis while I was a little bit skeptical (to put it very mildly ) about it.

:lol:

But when exactly did they start? And I'm guessing that they ended in 2003, and then recycled back to "A?" with the Sacred Treasure. Seems like most modern pieces have letters lower in the alphabet, don't they?

[JapanX]

But when exactly did they start?

I think the mint started to use these two letter marks simultaneously with two screws construction.

So the possible time period for these is (1982?)/1983-2003 ;)

[Dieter3]

Is it safe to assume that the marks would have started with "A"? If we go off of that assumption (and assumptions can be dangerous) and if Pieter's "DE" was awarded in 1983, could the start then have been in 1980? If this is true, then we should see upwards of "W", (possibly "X" if any old style medals were ever made in 2003), but no "Y" or "Z"" as the first character. Do we know this to be the case?

As for the 2nd "digit" - if that represents a month, we should see A thru L. This makes sense, but do we know this to be the case? Also, we introduce an issue with this theory - in 2003, the letters appear to recycle back to "A" - but then we see the use of a number as the second mark - but our problem is that we only have 0 thru 9! We'd be missing two months in this scheme.

What do you think gents?

[JapanX]

Well, personally I think we really need another documented group from 1983 ("check and double-check" and only after that - "foresight" ) and a couple of documented groups from another year (between 1983-2003)

You see, I couldn't figure out why they used two-letter codes for time coordinates...

And if DE has D because it is year #3 then why E?!?

P.S. Personally I've never seen a marked treasure with flat reverse. Did you?

Edited April 21, 2013 by JapanX

[Dieter3]

I have not seen a flat reverse with marks either.

D would be year number 4....

A=1980, B=81, C=82, D=83..........right? And E = May - which makes sense - characters applied when manufactured, not when issued - so Pieter's July award would not likely have "G" as it would have been made in advance - is that what you are getting at?

[JapanX]

A=1980, B=81, C=82, D=83..........right? And E = May - which makes sense - characters applied when manufactured, not when issued - so Pieter's July award would not likely have "G" as it would have been made in advance - is that what you are getting at?

You are confusing me!