the SQL generated by ogr2ogr seems to be truncating the date field. The record has the correct date using "ogrinfo -al". Problem reproduced on linux (RHEL WS 4) and Mac (10.4). Sample shapefile available at http://mapdevel.ngdc.noaa.gov/sample.tar
e.g.
lynx:/usr/local/shapefiles jcc$ ogr2ogr -f postgresql -a_srs EPSG:4326
PG:dbname=jcc -overwrite osmc.shp
ERROR 1: INSERT command for new feature failed.
ERROR: invalid input syntax for type date: "2006/12/"
Command: INSERT INTO "osmc" (wkb_geometry , "platform_i", "max_observ",
"observatio", "platform_t", "num_observ", "objectid") VALUES
(GeomFromEWKT('SRID=4326;POINT (-29.30999999999991
-41.889999999999972)'::TEXT) , '33627', '2006/12/', '2006/12/',
'DRIFTING BUOY', 133, 7469241)
ERROR 1: Terminating translation prematurely after failed
translation of layer osmc