Using the date field for searching

[Scott Derrick]

If I query date:1885

I get an error
org.apache.solr.common.SolrException: Invalid Date String:'1885'

If I query date:1885*

I get no results.

and yet there are numerous docs with a year of 1885 in the date string, 
like so

<arr name="date"><date>1885-02-08T00:00:00Z</date></arr>

if I query date:1885-02-08T00:00:00Z

I get 9 results??

Do the users really have to specify a full xml compliant date string to 
use the date: field for searching?

thanks,

Scott