I found the following reply:- I recently came across your article on Roman Numerals and the difficulty with the number 1999. Apparently you never were taught medieval Roman numerals. Very few folks seem to know about them--but some dictionaries mention them (my Random House does). Except for A, O, U, and W, all the letters have numbers associated with them--and you will be pleased to learn that Z=2,000. So IZ is a very simple expression for 1999.
And, B=300, E=250, F=40, G=400, H=200, J=1, K=250, N=90, P=400, Q=500, R=80, S=7 or 70, T=160, Y=150, Z=2,000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals#Middle_Ages_and_Renaissance