The Chinese characters are 鬪百草牌為記.

The stamp is inscribed on the back ‘Bramley Leeds 1954’. It has two holes drilled through the centre and a cord threaded through one of the holes. NRI archive item NRI/SCC2/179/12 is a letter from R.A. Salaman to Joseph Needham dated 5 Feb. 1955 stating ‘I found this block in a dis-used textile mill. […] It came from the mills in Bramley near Leeds called the Airvale Dye Works which belongs to the Bradford Dyer’s Association. They would like to know what the Chinese legend means. It was probably used for marking bales or cloths.’ Joseph Needham’s translation is ‘At the sign of the jostling multitudes of dye-plants.’

Raphael Arthur Salaman FSA (1906-1993) was an English engineer, collector, and writer.