A Question For Nick
With your knowledge and references I'm hoping you can clear up something for me. I've always wondered what these markings on the bottom of many ammo boxes mean? I know they are numbers but for what? And what is the significance of the number with the calendar sign? Other collectors have been wondering about this as well and I thank you in advance
There are all kinds of marking regs for ammunition, but they tend to depend of the type of gun. You'll need to tell me what sort of ammo is or was in that box, as I'm no gun collector.
This is a box for the Type 26 revolver. Nearly all of the earlier rifle, LMG and pistol ammo boxes have these markings on the bottom. Most also have the weapon information above these markings and the date below them. Like this
I haven't quite gotten to the bottom of your question yet, as I had to start from the top, so to speak.
The markings for the top of the cartridge packs were indeed defined by Army regulations. Initially following the system defined in Nov. 1920 and then simplified in August 1944. Here's the 1924 markings regs and the 1944 revisions in summary defining the top markings.
Markings for the bottom did not seem to be a matter regulated by the army, so arsenal level regs need to be checked to get to the real bottom of the box.
Thank you Nick for taking the time on this. The bottom marks remain a mystery but the information you provided is great and I added it to my photo files on Japanese ammunition. I've been at this so long now that I can actually read some of the basic information in there.
Now, we can start with how the box bottom markings began. Here's the 1915 regulation showing how to decipher the code on the bottom applicable at that time, which got introduced for the Type 38 ammunition. Note that marking elements were 3 (for 3rd year of Taisho 1914), Production Run Number
甲六一六 (A616), Batch Number 317 and powder charge 218.
Run numbers, combining a Kanji character with a number, and batch numbers would have to remain a mystery unless you find factory production logs, which determine the date and shift number, etc.
Great information Nick! Looks like you've solved this long time mystery! Mucho Thanky!
There's still some transitional steps missing in the middle.
Back in 1924, the markings on the top of the pack included both the production dates for the completed cartridge as well as the production dates for the powder. However, by the 1944 regs, the powder date had been omitted from the top (and very likely shifted to the bottom). When this missing link regulation covering these changes are found, the picture will be fully completed.
Here are a couple of T-11 LMG boxes I have that are like those above but have information about "heat tolerance" stamped in red.
Yes, I had already found those regs on the red stamps, too, but ignored them. There was also a fatal accident occurring with what was supposed to be a type 26 dummy cartridge, which introduced a slew of initiatives to correctly separate dummies through special markings.
If someone like Takehito Jimbo interested in firearms and capable of reading Japanese wants to do research, all the information is there in the archives, including bland things like test data. It is only that some of the information cannot be easily teased out through use of search words, but requires reading through hundreds of files until you find the proverbial needle.
If you have many more of those boxes, I would be curious what other Kanjis they used to indicate powder production dates. In the examples below, only 戊 and 丙 appear, but in the Ying-Yang theory from which these characters come, the full range is 5 characters, normally used to split the year into 4 seasons and the 戊 only stands for the middle point, the hottest day of the year.
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