Dunhill Group Number Stamp On Stem?

Greetings good people (and all the rest of us),
I received a beautiful 1968 Dunhill Shell poker in the mail today, and was looking it over, and realized that there wasn't a Group number or the usual "S" stamp for Shell. I know that sometimes Dunhill will stamp a poker on the bottom of the bowl, and other times on the bottom of the shank, and this one is stamped on the shank. Shape 90. Looking closer, I saw very faint marks on the actual stem, which turned out to be the buffed away remains of a circled number (can't make it out but based on the size of this pipe, I believe this to be a Group 3), and the bottom curl of an S. I've seen a good amount of Dunhills but I've never seen one with stampings on the stem (besides patent numbers on some of the much older pipes). Have any of you guys ever seen that before? It's an uncommon sight to me but maybe I just haven't seen the right pipes?

It's very faint, so it's difficult to get a good picture of. See if this helps any...

Here are a few more pictures.

Hahaha that's exactly what I was thinking!

Thanks, Doc!

I can tell there was a circle and I'm pretty sure there is the bottom portion of an S beside it, which would be expected for the Shell pipe. It is a pretty limited bit of briar, so I can see why they couldn't fit it, but I had never seen it go onto the actual vulcanite before so that was an interesting surprise. I wish it photographed better.