How can I ID no date SLQs?

Great question. The short answer is not at all. I'm more curious than anything. I paid melt for these and hope to sell them for higher melt value down the road.

 

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I'm one of the people who remembers SilvADate. One problem you have with trying to bring out a date on the silver coins is that most silver compounds are sensitive to light so as the silver is etched it also turns black making it impossible or nearly impossible to see the restored date. It usually takes abrasive methods to remove the black stain which also tends to remove the faint date again.

 

I can put a lot of oblique light on a coin to show even the faintest relief. There isn't anything black enough to not reflect adequate light under a point-blank 500-lumen source.

Coming at it from the other direction, I could do the etching under deep red light, or even infrared with a webcam to monitor progress, and avoid breaking the dissolved silver compounds back down into finely-divided elemental silver (which is what creates the black stain).

If I can do it, others can, and a market will emerge. But I think it generally won't work, because the basic metallurgy to make the field etch more quickly than the date just isn't there.

As I've said many times before, I'd be thrilled to be wrong here.

 

I did a study to determine the type of some Dateless SLQ that I have. Variety 1 is easy to tell from the reverse so I'll only discuss type 2 and type 3. What I did was look at coins from eBay with the dates just barely visible (so I new their type from the date). Attached are a couple of slides that describe what I determined. Basically, I think you can tell variety 2 from 3 by the absence or presence of the pedestal at liberty's feet.

 

Unfortunately, in the examples shown its unnecessary as the type can still be identified by the remaining date. That said, and this would be new to me if it worked, perhaps consider trying to compare examples with similar remaining meat? The two TyII examples given are quite different in this rather important respect.

 

Let me see if I can explain the logic of my study:

1) On a type 2 SLQ, the date will wear off before the pedestal will wear off.

2) On a type 3 SLQ, the pedestal can be completely worn away, but the date can be still visible, as shown in the 1929 example from my first post. This says the pedestal will wear off before the date on a type 3 SLQ.

3) Therefore, if you can see a pedestal and no date, 1) says it can be a type 2 SLQ, 2) says it cannot be a type 3 SLQ because the date would be visible. …. Therefore the SLQ is a type 2.


That said, it is possible for a type 2 SLQ to have both the date and the pedestal worn off. My method will not work on these. This leaves the determination of a type 3 SLQ ambiguous. How do I tell a type 3 SLQ from a type 2 SLQ with both that date and pedestal worn off? Maybe by comparing type 3 SLQ (w/o date. w/ pedestal) and unknown SLQ’s w/o date and w/o pedestal with similar wear to see if a pedestal should be there.


Using my logic, I have picked out the type 2 SLQ from Seattlite86’s photo. See attachments.


I hope this helps.

 

Interesting theory. I don't know enough about the series to take a stance, but I appreciate your willingness to discuss.

 

Thanks for the reply.

Attached is a coin from my collection that is a type 3 (1926). On this coin, a part of the 2 is just barely recognizable and the 6 clear. A 1926 SLQ would be type 3. This coin supports postulate 2 (as does the 1929 from my 1st post). Postulate 2 is: on a type 3 SLQ the pedestal will wear out before the date. Note that this coin is type 3, has a date, and has no pedestal.

Postulate 2 says that your coin with the 7 showing is a type 3 1927.

To convince yourself that postulate 2 and 3 are true or not,

- search SLQs on eBay and sort lowest cost first,

- select coins where the date is almost worn off but is still recognizable so that you can determine the type.

- Do postulates 1 and 2 hold?

- Do type 2 SLQs with a nearly worn off date have a clear pedestal?

- Do type 3 SLQs with a nearly worn off date have a missing pedestal?

Postulate 1: on a type 2 SLQ the date will wear out before the pedestal.

Postulate 2: on a type 3 SLQ the pedestal will wear out before the date.

 

Your argument is sound. I'll browse eBay when I get the chance. Thanks again!

 

As a follow up, there were about 80 dateless SLQs kept aside in a small canvas bag, that I had saved for no particular reason, other than I like SLQs. Of these only two were variety 1, and the first had a D! (bummer). At this point my wife came over to see what I was doing and noticed no dates on the coins. Sarcasm was evident until I explained about dateless 1916 SLQs, and showed her the eBay auctions that @jeffB had posted. She was a convert! Together we compared "our" specimen to that of the photo @coinzip had posted. Keeping in mind that the odds of this remaining quarter being a 1916 are less than one half of one percent, we remained hopeful. Drum roll. No match! But, for a brief moment I felt the excitement of the hunt, AND I got my wife interested in numismatics for a short period of time, which is a reward in of itself.

 

Maybe reed count? IDK, that's probably unlikely because there may be two dates with different reed counts. In addition, the reeds may be worn away. In addition to that, 1916-24 might be a bit too late to tell a coin by reed count.

Vinegar and peroxide? I've heard one guy on CCF who tested it and said it works. One case. Also mixing vinegar and peroxide makes peracetic acid, which is toxic to inhale and corrosive.

Maybe key dates like 1921 and 1923-S might have obscure, tiny die features that are distinguishable even at FR and AG, but I very strongly doubt that.

I really don't know.