"Gord Dibben" <gorddibbATshawDOTca wrote...
Excel 2002 on a PC here.

Also tested on 2003. Need the quotes.

Tested on 97. Don't need the quotes.

Just one of those things
....

And under XL2K don't need the quotes.

Hard to imagine this is anything other than a bug in the later versions,
unless it's related to later Excel versions' Oh-so-wonderful ability to
parse muslim calendar dates under English language settings.