Advice on dateless buffalo nickels

[bblair]

Hey all, just seeking some opinions on what to do with dateless buffalo nickels. I've read a variety of thoughts on here, from soaking in vinegar to doing nothing. I just scored a lot of buffalos that my bank saved for me and I have quite a few where there is no date visible at all, some you can see the last 2 digits of the year.

Any thoughts would be appreciated, thanks!

HH
bblair

[Generic_Lad]

For no dates I'd get Nic-A-Date, for ones where you can figure out the date, I'd leave them how they are because Nic-A-Date will destroy the value of those, but as for the completely dateless ones you have nothing to lose. A key date with chemical damage from Nic-A-Date is worth more than a dateless buffalo.

[SilverFace]

If you can see the last two digits and can determine the date then it is best to do nothing. The reason for using vinegar or nic-a-date is just to determine what the date is for no-dates. But with the no-dates you usually don't have much to lose by using vinegar or nic-a-date like was just stated above unless you can determine the date just by looking at key features of the coin like the raised mound for the 1913.

Congrats on the buffalo score!

[ArkieBassMan]

They're yours, so do with them as you wish.

Personally, I would use nic-a-date (or vinegar) on all of them. A dateless buffalo has very little value. Artificially obtaining a date off a dateless buffalo technically "damages" the coin. However, one might argue the coin is damaged anyway. At any rate, its not like you're playing around with a valuable coin. However, should one of your dateless coins turn out to be a rare date, like a Type 2 1913S for example, I would think that it IS going to be worth more than just any ol' garden variety dateless buffalo. So in my opinion you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by chemically dating them.

Again, that is what I would do. The coins are not mine, they're yours. Best of luck!

[bblair]

For no dates I'd get Nic-A-Date, for ones where you can figure out the date, I'd leave them how they are because Nic-A-Date will destroy the value of those, but as for the completely dateless ones you have nothing to lose. A key date with chemical damage from Nic-A-Date is worth more than a dateless buffalo.

Yeah, I am leaving the ones where you can figure out the date alone. I was looking at a few and it looked like maybe the last digit was a 3 or 5 and the digit before it probably had to be a 1 because of the spacing (not enough room for a 2).

I just didn't want to ruin any coins all together and eliminate any value.

Thanks...keep the opinions coming!

bblair