Help solve this mystery battery date code

[Troy P.]

I have an NOS DC-12 tar top battery still in the box. For various reasons I believe this was made in late 62 or early 63. It has the yellow Delco caps (which changed to black in mid 63) and the box has an application chart showing 1963 327 engines as the latest year to which it applies.

It has a date code of "N7X". This is strange. Certainly the third figure, the X, means it was made in New Bruswick, NJ. But the first figure is supposed to be a numeral indicating the year and the second a letter from A through M indicating the month. In this case the letter is first and the number is second. Also there is no month "N" in the calendar as December is "M". No leap month!

Can anyone explain what's going on here?

[Richard M.]

Re: Help solve this mystery battery date code

Troy,

Is there a date on the box somewhere? Sometimes the box weight rating stamp is dated.

Rich

[Troy P.]

Re: Help solve this mystery battery date code

Good thought. At your suggestion I studied the weight stamp (never done this before) and found a wealth of info. But no date info.

Since this is an original date stamp that doesn't jive with the NCRS guidelines on how it should be configured (letter here comes before numeral), isn't this another example of things not always being done perfectly/consistently during manufacturing? Or are we to assume that for some odd reason the replacement batteries, made by the same manufacturer, had a different scheme for date coding than those installed on the assembly line? I lean toward the former but am interested in any explanation.