HI! The other day I walked into my favorite coin store and i asked him if he had any unwanted coins. He immediately gave me about 11 dollars of buffalo nickels FOR FACE. I have heard of vinegar but something I did wrong created the ugly black colored effect as shown. I know for a fact that it works because I have had countless successes. It's just this one. I froze the vinegar so that the active ingredient acetic acid I think would stay in as I dumped the excess then I soaked the nickel but then blue shards, ( only for these 5 ) started appearing so I soaked them in water. Then they turned this colored. I rubbed them off with baking soda and it worked but I was wondering. 1- should I keep doing this with all nickels? ( 11 dollars )I know there are some hints that tell you what date but I'm a noob and don't know how to tell them apart, I also don't know what type one and twos are. The reason I don't you nic a date is because if I find a key date it would look better as it turns out much shiny and new unlike the nic a date. 2 - can someone give me a procedure 3- anyone had success, any key dates? 4- some have mint marks, should I seperate those from the rest?
You can search on nic-a-date. Also a quick google search for acid buffalo nickel shows what others have tried. Never tried it myself, but it seems a few people have found some keepers.
Please don't do anything irreversible to these nickels until you've studied a bit more. It's really easy to tell Type 1 (rounded mound on reverse) from Type 2 (flat ground with a recessed area underneath), even when the date is gone; there's no point in trying to "restore" a Type 1, because it can only be a 1913 coin. Once you've gotten the hang of the acid treatment, you can start looking for rare dates; in a lot that size, you're likely to find at least a couple. When I was restoring a lot of dateless Buffs, I used standard white vinegar and patience. It took a few days for the dates to start coming up, but I also didn't have any catastrophic failures. DO NOT add salt -- it can trash the coins quickly and without much warning.
Thanks Jeff Anything good from your try's? I heard baking soda afterwards stops the vinegar from eating away at it after your done. Have you found any key dates? B the way, can you give me a pic of the difference between the type one and two please? The ones I'm finding are blurry.
You know, it's been a while, and I honestly don't remember what I found -- which implies that there wasn't anything too spectacular. I don't think you need baking soda as long as you do a multi-stage rinse. It would certainly neutralize the vinegar, but I'm not sure whether it would do anything undesireable. I'll try to get a shot of some of my current dateless Type 1 and Type 2 nickels, so you can more easily compare what you've got. If you don't see the pictures here by tonight, post me a reminder.
I use nic a date with good results, pretty quick too, but you have to use just a little bit, wipe it off and rinse then usually repeat. Found several key dates. Weren't worth too much but it was kind of fun.
