Featured Help enhance/interpret signature on a basket, please?

@Aquitaine, et al - I just acquired a Gullah sweetgrass basket that has a very faint signature on the bottom. I am hoping some of you with better skills might be able to do your magic and render it legible.

Below are two views with slightly different lighting angles. I can make out "6 8 3" on the stitches of one of the coils, which I assume is a date - June 1983. On the second coil above that line are more letters on both the stitches and the grass in between the stiches. I assume this would be the name of the weaver, but it is very faint. Any suggestions would be gratefully received.





Here is the entire basket -

 

I can read 683 if that helps.

 

Yes, thank you. That is also what I was able to read so far.

 

Thank you. Still indistinct, but perhaps others can see more than I can.

 

Well done for seeing this in the first place. Or do some weavers often sign like this and you knew to look for it? I think this will be very difficult (unless someone just recognises the signature from memory/experience) A part from the date the few letters I think I can make out makes no sense (sorry)

 

Maybe try a UV light?

 

On the stitches I think I see CIC CI. I can't see what is in between the stiches, so even if what I see is correct, it is incomplete.

 

Yes, I have seen signatures on sweetgrass baskets before and, prompted by my partner who asked "Are they ever signed?", I peered at it more closely. But it may be too far gone to recover.

 

Good suggestion. I will try that and report back. Busy doing Christmas baking today, though.