Reference Image: 1920, 1921 And 1924 Dateless Buffalo Nickel

I've had some questions about identifying dateless 1920, 1921 and 1924 nickels, so I thought I would put up a reference image and description of these dates.



If you see a wavy ribbon, do not use nic-a-date! You can identify the date without damaging the coin.

1920 usually shows part of the date in a pretty distinctive way, but if it does not, you can identify it because the left hair ribbon has a large wave in it. Other years have a mostly straight ribbon.

1921 has the same wave in the ribbon, but it also has extra hair detail right above the band at the top of the braid. Specifically, there are three little grooves going into the band. They are usually visible even on extremely worn examples of the date (though they may be small if very worn), and are not present at all on other dates.

1924 also has a wavy ribbon, but it's shaped differently; the wave is smaller and higher up.

The above image should make the distinctions clear (click to enlarge). These three dates always have these details, for all the three mints, and no other dates have them.