SLQ Date Restoration Attempts Begin Tonight

In case anyone is wondering, I've basically thrown in the towel on this project. The nitric acid DOES work, and at one point I successfully restored the dates (or part of the dates) on 4 consecutive quarters, but the results are just not good enough to hold my interest any longer. Let's face it, the best you might hope to achieve is to bring the date back on a 1923-S or a 1921. (If you have a dateless 1916, hopefully you recognize it as such by it's unique set of diagnostics) None of the others really count if you consider that the restored date is bound to be super, super faint. Are you going to put a restored 1923-S or 1921 into you SLQ set if you need high magnification, bright light and a trained eye just to detect the date? What do you realistically think you could SELL such a coin for? $50? $100? And how many dateless specimens would you have to process (using a pretty scary chemical) just to find one or two of these premium dates?

I guess I've been spoiled doing what I do with Buffalo nickels. I do a LOT of Buffalo nickels restorations, and with those I get a lot of instant gratification: Dates I can easily read, numerous keys, relatively safe chemicals and an available market for my final product. Dateless SLQ's don't seem to fit ANY of those criteria so my quest is officially at an end.

Thanks for all your work, time and interest. Neat thread.

I'm sad this didn't work. Hopefully someone will come up with a "sliver bullet" soon :)

Thank you for your valiant effort! It would have been really neat if this had worked out.