acid treating

Another thing with the SLQs: don't be quick to nic-a-date the Type 1's since they might be 1916's. There are diagnostics to tell if it's 1916 so you don't kill a coin that could be worth good money.

 

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I heard the discontinued product that was used to restore dates on worn SLQ and Walkers was called "Silver Date Back".

 

never heard of it

 

I don't see the downside of dipping Buffalos into acid, sure its not worth as much as it would be if you didn't dip it, (If somehow you already know the year, and date) but if you didn't dip it, it'll just be another cull buffalo nickel, worth a few dimes. After dipping it , sure it'll be damaged, but you get a date. acid dipped nickels with a date is better than a dateless buffalo nickel in my opinion.

 

Exactly, you are not hurting the "value" of those coins by restoring the dates. And it's nice to see what the dates are.

 

Another discontinued product called"coin date" worked very well.

 

I have used "coin date" on buffalo nickels for years...came up with 1918/7-d which I sold on ebay for a nice profit.....

 

Are you saying that product worked on worn silver coins ?

 

For nickles, vinegar with a shot of hydrogen peroxide will bring a date up in an hour

Don't put the hydrogen peroxide in and wait a day or two

 

Cascade, would you mind clarifying the second sentence? I'd like to try this on some cull Buffs, but not sure what you meant.

Steve

 

Sure, fill a small bowl with white vinegar and then add a squirt of hydrogen peroxide. Then submerge the coins and check them every 20 minutes or so. You will start seeing a blue tinge to the solution and within an hour or so the dates will magically appear... The hydrogen peroxide acts as a catalyst. Without it, the acidic vinegar alone will usually take days to bring the date up.

Another thing with dateless buffs is that only certain dates will carry a premium and all are branch mints so practice on one's without a mint mark as there is a fine line between bring the date up and then it going away forever if left in too long

 

When I was a kid they made a product called nic-a-silver. Almost no one today seems to remember it. It had limited effectiveness, but did not "etch" the coin like nic-a-date does on nickels. I used it to pull out the mint mark on worn mercury dimes. Bought a number of 21-P dimes and sold 21-D dimes for a profit. Never found a worn off 1916-D. It was also good on three cent silver coin dates, which tend to wear down. As i remember it would stain your hands a dark purple that you just had to wear off.

 

Depends on your reasoning. No date buffaloes are not worth much. Damaged? Would the average collector prefer an acid date or a no-date? Especially it its any kind of rare date. Seems to me, acid dates raise the value.
I like to metal detect, and was discussing cleaning with my brother once. He knew cleaning was generally frowned on, and "decreased value" but I told him, "I found it, so it essentially cost nothing, and anything I get is a profit.
All depends on how you look at it.

 

I use a 10 to one vinegar peroxide solution , works well to restore the date. often a bonus of most to full horn. 24 hours in the solution, most likely if no date comes out your not going to get it, you may try another 24 hours . For that pasty white look use a dab of nonabrasive tooth paste and a soft tooth brush , care full of the date. Call it what you will , I call it preserving a coin. Having done this any many times I have over a 90% success rate. Understand what you are doing working with a metal alloy .750 copper .250 nickel. in the short term the solution will not attack the copper but remove micro layers of the nickel. thus if there is enough copper in the date you will retrieve it. don't try to enhance it after you have the date. You will lose it forever! because I do so much of this as a hobby , past time , I'll soak the coin in a cheap acetone ( finger nail polish remover) works better if you do this cleaning one step first because it allows your 10 to 1 solution to work on the coin not the years of accumulated ( Body acids) filth all old circulated coins have. just a foot note.. that filth on those coins over the years eats away at the coin.. so much for the die hard purest don't clean the coin thing. Just don't use an abrasive that will alter the coins. there it is my 2 cents worth!