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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 3352815, member: 27832&quot;]We&#039;ve gone back and forth over the years about whether there was ever a product that would successfully restore dates on silver. Some people claim that there was, back in the 60s, but it&#039;s no longer available.</p><p><br /></p><p>My take is that it&#039;s not possible. I support that with two arguments, one from metallurgy, and one from observation.</p><p><br /></p><p>From metallurgy: the reason etching restores dates on nickels is that the copper-nickel alloy undergoes <i>work hardening</i> as it is extruded into the recesses of a die, and it&#039;s that hardening that makes the date &quot;foundation&quot; etch more slowly than the surrounding surface. Coin silver is more malleable, doesn&#039;t work harden to the same extent, and doesn&#039;t display differential etching as a result. Gold wouldn&#039;t be expected to, either.</p><p><br /></p><p>From observation: restored-date key Buffalo nickels don&#039;t bring nearly as much money as original examples, but they bring a <i>lot</i> more money than a dateless coin. Since there&#039;s a market, it&#039;s very easy to find restored-date Buffalos. Dateless SLQs are plentiful and cheap. If it were possible to bring back the date on a 1921 or 1918/7-S quarter, people would be restoring quarters left and right to find them, and we&#039;d be seeing the results at auctions and/or in Details slabs. We don&#039;t, because they can&#039;t, because it isn&#039;t.</p><p><br /></p><p>But if anyone can show me before-and-after shots of the same coin, dateless and with the date restored, and do it repeatedly, I&#039;ll be <i>really really happy</i> to change my mind. And dig out those rolls of dateless SLQs that I&#039;ve accumulated.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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