[78-L] Columbia question

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrea Walsh" <petquality1 at gmail.com>
> There are TEENY TINY letters "AY" under the "A" in "Columbia" does that 
> mean
> anything?
>
YES! "AY" means the labels were ordered in (IIRC) January, 1917...!

This was a short-lived system that Columbia used from 1916 until
(again IIRC) sometime in 1920. The first letter is the month (A for
January through L for December)...and the second the year ("Z" was
1916 and down from there...!) They got down to "V" in 1920, but
that was later replaced by "P" at which point they gave up on the
whole durn mess!!

...stevenc