Dates On Stamps

Thanks for the tip, Mike. I just need to know how to read the Japanese dates, now! I have one in front of me that reads 9110.4.8-12, but this must contain more than just a date. Anyone know how to read these?

Clark

I have some modern Japanese stamps, and studying them just now I think the numbers at the end of the date are the time of day the mail was processed in 24 hour clock mode.

So 8-12 would be 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM, 12-18 would be 12 PM to 6 PM and 18-24 is 18:00 to 24:00 or 6 PM to 12 AM.

The dates I think are Year / Month / Day but this seems to change depending on the year or maybe region. (I was looking at stamps issued in 2004 AD) (Anno Domini, our calendar, the Gregorian calendar)

I consulted Wikipedia under 'Japanese calendar' and found his:

Since the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, three different systems for counting years have been used in Japan:

* The European Anno Domini (Common Era) (西暦, seireki) designation
* The Japanese era name (年号, nengō) based on the reign of the current emperor, the year 2009 being Heisei 21
* The imperial year (皇紀, kōki) based on the mythical founding of Japan by Emperor Jimmu in 660 BC.

Of these three, the first two are still in current use; Japan-Guide.com provides a convenient converter between the two. The imperial calendar was used from 1873 to the end of World War II.

I looked at japan-guide.com and found it hard to find the year converter so I searched for 'what year is it' and found it!

Link to it:
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2272.html

Plus they have extra info on calendars and years.

I remember reading in some novel a saying that people understood and would calm them down whenever they encountered something that would raise their hackles or upset them to anger: 'Different peoples, different customs.' Simple.

I just discovered how to edit my posts! No more misspellings!

Except in the year of the mischievous monkey. Darn monkey, where did you put my stamp tongs? Worse than gremlins!

I just looked at some new 2009 Japan stamps on eBay and the date seems to have the Month / Day / Year now. Argh. Maybe the best way to figure it out is to have a bunch of the same stamps and study the dates on the cancels and see what makes sense.

This is correct; good and accurate analysis. On these type of Japanese cancels, the postmark would indicate which quarter of the day; similar to US postmarks that indicated which hour of the day.

This notation usually appears at the right, or separately at the bottom of the circular postmark.

k

Thee Japanese stamps' dates are neat!

So, according to the japan-guide converter 2004 is year 16 Heisei and 2005 is 17 Heisei (emperor). Maybe that is the number above the date, just below the Japanese caligraphical characters on some stamps below. I at first thought this number might be the hammer used or clerk number like on some older Canadian stamps.

Note the time stamp is sometimes below or beside the date, depending on the city of postmarking. Quite an interesting study this would make!

So, on the first Hello Kitty stamp (I picked these as they are lightly coloured and the date is easier to read) from 2004, the '16.5.13 / 12-18' would be '2004.May.13 / 12 PM-6 PM'(?).

Puzzler, for the stamp you showed, that is the correct date/time; you simply add the emperor year to 1988 to get the correct year.

For stamps issued before 1988, the year of the emperor is added to 1925.

k

Thanks khj!

I wondered what to do about earlier stamps.

I think I would like to collect the postmarks from each town or city (in Canada and in Japan, ah heck, in every country!) sometime. It seems very interesting. Very historical.

You are brave! But you will find it very fun!

You will also have to learn some basic kanji, as the earlier Japanese postmarks are in kanji (on the very early ones, the numbers are also in kanji).

k

That would be interesting and challenging (my eyes are not so good at times).

Maybe the library has books on kanji that I could scan and enlarge on the computer.

I have always enjoyed the calligraphy of Japanese stamps and wondered what it all meant.

When I posted that worn out stamp, I didnt know the stamp was circa 1951 almost ten years older!, until I saw this envelope pic at ebay.Our stamps didnt have year dates then, now they do

Just got another date, a cover that was mailed 1921 from the Philippines went to USA and, somehow, the envelope, probably handcarried by a relative? got back here and landed in a stamp collector's collection

just thought I would add a few...

On a similar theme, is there a term for a cancel when it doesn't have the date printed in the CDS at all and on purpose? I've been coming across some that have only the town and state or town, state, year, but no day or month. I tend to find them on covers that should have been used in the U.S. between the 1930's and 50's. I would post a pic, but I'm out of town in a motel for work now :(
Will