I'm trying to calculate the date a globe was produced, using as a source its features, i.e. the names of the nations, the borders, the capitals, anything else that could have changed with time. This, considering that some info might be incorrect, so multiple evidence would help.
Seems legit
- Germany is split: 1949-1990
- Kinshasa's Congo is called Zaire: 1971-1997
- Yemen is split: 1967-1990
- Western Sahara is drawn striped: 1975-current
Unreliable
- Namibia isn't drawn striped: 1990-current
- Namibia's capital is Windhoek, but it's not clear to me if it was the same even under South African rule
- Walvis Bay appears on the map, but it not attributed to South Africa: this would raise the lower bound to 1994, which is impossible given that the higher has twice been put to 1990, so I'd just consider info about Namibia to be unreliable (some micro-states just do not appear on the map, but I'd expect that if they do, then they would be attributed to the correct country)
Conclusions
If the Namibia's "independence" is correct, and Walvis Bay omission just a mistake, the year is 1990.
Assuming it's unreliable, or assuming I want more than once piece of evidence, currently it's 1975-1990: is there some other info I missed that I could check?
Experiment
I'm arbitrarily deciding not to use other data, such as the name of the publisher, what I know about it, etc. Consider this an experiment I'm trying to do.
The 1990 date is very likely to be correct: as I said, consider this an experiment.