I see many Buffalo Nickels on ebay state that they used acid to raise the date....does this devalue the coin....knowing how important it is to be able to read the date. How do you tell if this has ben done if they don't state that it has.
i beleive it does devalue the coin, after all your treating the coin with acid, i use them as hole fillers till a better one comes along, heres a pic of 2 dateless buffs the one on right treated with nic-a-date...which brought out the date 1920..
Not really. Since the coin was dateless it little value above face to begin with. Sometimes using the acid can even increase the value a bit for those who are only trying fill holes. But just a little bit - I'm talking pennies here. But there are some exceptions. Some scarce date/mint combinations do increase more. It's pretty easy once you've seen one. The metal affected by the acid has a very distinctive look.
Some people collect "dateless" buffs, and they usually sell on eBay for about 15c each. However, "restored" dates sell for an average of 50c and up. So... bottom line, restored dates (when done correctly) do NOT devalue the coin, they ADD value.
