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 Replies: 9 / Views: 1,197 |
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Valued Member
United States
411 Posts |
Well, I believe this is my 300th post!  I recently started collecting Buffalo nickels by date and mintmark. My question(s) is (are): What is "acid etching"? How do you recognize it? Does anyone have any images of acid etched coins? Thanks, and everyone do me a favor: Enjoy the rest of your day.  |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
12437 Posts |
Acid etching refers to using Nic-a-date on dateless Buffs to "raise" the date. It will leave an obvious discoloration around the date area.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2269 Posts |
Congratulations on your 300th post. This is the first time I have heard of acid etching. Is this a common practice?
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Valued Member
 United States
411 Posts |
Thanks biokemist6. I don't know how common it is Spider5689. I never heard of it till I started buying nickels that were guaranteed not to have this problem.
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Valued Member
United States
101 Posts |
Acid treated nickels are very obvious and easily spotted. The most common thing done is to just nicadate the area where the date is and it leaves a very distinct color difference from the rest of the coin it will be very easy to spot. The second thing people do is to use acid across the entire coin and take a dateless buffalo and eat it down enough to make it a full horn full date buffalo. FORTANATELY tho this is also easily identifyable sp? because the coin will be very grainy looking. These acid etched nickels are something that I despise and wont even think about purchasing, but nowdays they seem to be more and more prevalent on ebay. Its harder to find a non acid dated buffalo that is decent than it is to find a needle in a haystack at times now. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Unfortunately there are a lot of really good coin restoration people out there. These are people that do use such chemicals to restore dates on coins such as you mentioned. It is very common lately due to the coin collecting craze now going on. As to detecting ones with restored dates it is becoming very difficult to note any discoloration on those done by someone that has played with this for some time now. One dealer I know showed me several Standing Lib Quarters that he had restored the dates himself and I could not detect that was done. He also had Buffalo nickels that someone else did and then he treated so as not to tell. He is honest and tells people what was done. One of his secrets is gun blueing solutions. He wouldn't tell me what brand but says it makes a restored date almost impossible to tell. Not all brands are the same. |
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
Well, I believe this is my 300th post! Thanks, and everyone do me a favor: Enjoy the rest of your day. Oops. I forgot. Congradulations on your 300th. Strange at the far left it says 303.  |
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Pillar of the Community
Germany
1062 Posts |
Ok, I have what may seem a stupid question. I got a dateless buffalo coin and just assumed that the date was worn off, the coin had been in circulation for a long time, but is this the case as there seems to be a lot of dateless coins, and with people talking about being able to get the date back. Were the dates just weak? or is there something else here?
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2797 Posts |
Augsberger,
The acid etch works based on physical properties of the metal. The date is a higher density than the surrounding field (compressed during the minting process)and resists the acid. The acid eats away the surrounding field and the date "magically" reappears. It's all based on metal density. Left in the acid long enough, even the date and other compressed devices would melt away.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
20753 Posts |
As described this is the same processes used to bring back the serial numbers on guns where that has been filed off.
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Replies: 9 / Views: 1,197 |
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Posted 08/08/2007 6:21 pm
