Found a way to get dates off standing liberty quarters.

Well it works for most and its takes patience , but I found 7 1923s by buying just dateless quarters around silver prices. Its not pretty but it works and still think its better than having dateless libertys. Heres my two best examples of the 1923s standing libertys.

 

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And I dont want to hear I ruined a dateless quarter.

 

The stain can be removed with either cleaning it with bars bathroom cleaner or eraser while its wet with water or vinegar. But the date will be harder to read or disappear. Done it to 100 dateless with over half of the dates showing up.

 

The second one is much easier to read. How'd you do it?

 

Use Nic-a-date and let it sit on the date area for a day or so. Than carefully clean the left over by dipping it in water and use a cotton ball to remove the gunk, no scrubbing. Last and most important step soak them in regular water, I use bottle water. The dates will become more noticeable a day to a week. If the date didn't come out repeat the first steps. If done to many times it will have to be cleaned off completely. I tried soaking them in vinegar but had better success with just water. I think the water removed the stain slowly, especially on the date stamp.

 

I completed a standing liberty book and bought all the coins with dates on them except the 1923-s and of course no 1916, they are just so hard and expensive to find. I had so many pre 1925 liberty s mint marks and thought one of them has to be a 1923s, my surprise found 7 so far. Some are harder to read but the two I posted were the clearest examples.

 

But please before you do this clean the date area first soak it in vinegar and use a eraser on the date lightly. The date might become visible if your lucky, instead of staining it.

 

That is so wrong on so many levels I can't even find the words.

 

Bookmarking for when I get to a better screen.

Sure, key dates with the date worn off might be out there. But the 1923-S is expensive because it's rare -- if you've got a thousand randomly-selected SLQs (out of the entire series mintage), you'd expect maybe five of them to be 1923-S. How many have you treated?

Edit: I see that you've done 100. From that number, the odds of finding a single 1923-S are maybe 50%. The odds of finding seven are less than 1%. Not saying that it can't happen -- just saying that I think the odds of convincing yourself you're seeing 1923s are a good bit higher.

 

Kind of a conundrum here. Dateless nickels, dateless quarters, both useless w/o dates and only worth melt or maybe 15 cents each for the nickels. Steven Musil, who advertises regularly in NN has a huge stock of mostly damaged coins, restored dates, etc. and has been in business for a long time so there must be a market for them to someone out there. As long as you are not advertising them for sale w/o mentioning they have been restored it's a safe bet someone will want to fill a hole until they can afford a better coin. I have often wondered how many Buffalo over dates or other rare nickels have been made into jewelry and are lost forever to collectors. But this is only this old mans point of view.

 

I Want To Believe, but I'd like to see the date area under hard oblique light. It's too easy to read whatever we want into the stains.

 

Restoring the date with acid makes a key date worthless.
It's a Catch 22 since without etching it, you can't read it.
And once you can read it the coin is permanently damaged.
I guess this is an area that restorers need to work on. Being able
to pull up a date on a Buffalo or SLQ without destroying the numismatic
value of the coin. There is science for everything else, this is a puzzle that can be solved.

 

I'll take all your restored 1913-S Type II Buffalos off your hands. (And flip them on eBay for $50+ each.)

 

No I dont sell anything and yes I found a couple of 1913-s type 2 using nic-a-date. Started just wanting to fill a quick book than, decide to to it right and spend the extra money for date ones, except the ones that are to expensive for my taste. I found a total of 8 1923-s. It's not to hard to figure it out once you see that 2. If its a 1920s, the zero is easily spotted. And the 1924s there's a bigger space between the numbers. The teens are harder to make out, 1917 is the easiest. As for the D mint, if you see a 2 than it only can be a 1920-d or 1924d. The number 1 is the hardest, still haven't really confirmed a 1921 find, plenty of 1923 and 1920. I don't do this for money, I just like finding out the dates.

 

So Idc If anyone thinks this is dumb or wrong. I don't see any harm damaging a coin that has 3 to 4 dollars in silver price. Also same with the nickels not worth much than a quarter. I was just sharing my finds so if anyone out there want to fill a book out as a hobby, they can do it without paying 400 for a 1923's. Trust me I bid on a few and lost. So I tried nic-a-date with little luck. So I thought whatever I'll soak them in water so I could remove the stain easier. And than I discovered dates were appearing.

 

Also worked on mercury dimes to get a couple mint marks off a couple 1917's, not worth anything but did it for fun.

 

Example 20s

 

An excellent point, and one that's tough to debate, but perhaps he was talking about them being "worthless" to purists? Not defending it in the least, and I highly doubt it the case, but is the only thing I could come up with. That said though, there is a downside and is, perhaps, best described by how many "1918/7-D overdates" just happen to be found with acid. Yes, I know it does happen and genuine treated overdates exist, but is one example where many see what they want to as opposed to what's actually there.

Anyway, have you looked at the OP's photos on a better screen yet? I am skeptical to say the least, and can't make anything out one way or the other short the last photo (which does suggest some promise - imo, and with my terrible eyesight).

 

I don't see any problem with restoring the dates and could see the fun of the hunt. I'm sure that thousands of them are tossed into melting pots anyway. But I just wouldn't want them for my collection because I'm a coin snob and prefer much nicer coins.

 

19s example