Vinegar On Coins..

No, it's generally not OK to use vinegar on coins with any kind of value. It's used to recover dates on Buffalo nickels that have had their dates worn off, but with the understanding that they'll be considered damaged afterwards. Dateless Buffalo nickels have minimal value, so people don't mind so much.

i think the general practice is to just let them fully soak in vinegar. some folks will use products like nic-a-date on just the date area, but I think in general, it's just easier top plop the whole thing in vinegar. you'll be able to spot restored (damaged) nickels immediately, so it wouldn't matter really whether or not you did the whole thing or just the date area. every once in a while, you'll have a nickel so worn down that the date will be unrecoverable. but most of the time, you'll be able to get something to come up.

Thanks again guys. Gotta love the quick responses on this website.

I've used white vinegar to remove the greenish patina or residue that develops on circulated silver-clad Kennedy half dollars. A few minutes soak usually restores a pleasing silver color without causing any damage that I can detect.

Vinegar as well as all the other items for cleaning coins just should not be done. Yes in some instances a rather expensive Buffalo nickel is said to be found. Yet every time I've seen them they are badly discolored. It's the acid in the Vinigar that is doing the work. And if you look into it you can find Vinegar with a higher acidic content. But why not just go to and auto store and purchase battery acid? Why not just go to Home Depot or Menards or Ace Hardware and purchase Muriatic Acid. If you check you would also find Tomato Juice, Lemon Juice, Lime Juice, etc. also contain Acids. So why not use them and save the money buying something you really don't need unless you do you Vinegar at home for food.
In almost all instances cleaning a coin should not be done with anything stronger than Distilled water. Next would be Acetone. Other than that, the chances of ruining a possible valuable coin is something you could end up feeling sorry about.
Of course if you really want to find out more on cleaning coins with Vinegar, just go to the Search tab at the top and type in cleaning coins, coin cleaning, Vinegar, Acetone and/or similar subjects.

i think the whole point of this thread was relating to otherwise valueless coins where restoring a date would be for posterity's sake and (in my case, interim hole filling) The other issue being brought up is a valuable coin that without a date is unidentifiable...unless there are obvious markers other than date that indicate a specific coin, how would we know it would otherwise be valuable? It's not. if a buffalo was a 1918/7D but the date was completely unreadable, then by all accounts it's essentially worthless. if the date was restored and by some miracle we could discern the overdate, wouldn't it make sense that while the coin has been cleaned/damaged it now has more value (monetary or otherwise) than its previous dateless state?

If they don't have mint-marks, it's probably not worth trying to restore them. Most Philly dates are pretty common and wouldn't be worth much more in a restored state.

If they do have mint-marks, you want to check for features that would identify the date. 1913 type 1 stands out, of course, but you can also identify at least 1920, 1921 and 1924 by unique detail in the hair and ribbons. The 1916 doubled die is identifiable without a date and the 1918/7-D has a distinctive die crack.

Thanks for the picture captainfwiffo. I will save it for future reference. Seeing as I only started getting serious about collecting in the last month or so I value all your opinions greatly. The dateless coins I have don't have mint-marks so I've decided against "restoring" them.