How to Get a Date Off a Dateless Standing Liberty Quarter

Hey Guys,
My Cousin gave me a bag of some silver coins (it weighed 2.6 oz) and it had a couple cool things in it and hole fillers, but among them was a dateless SLQ. Is there a way to find the date on it without acid treatment? Its worth basically junk silver but, a date would be nice (oh and its an s mint if that counts for anything)
Thanks
Jason

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

Nothing personal, but why would anybody waste their time trying to bring up a date on a severely-worn coin? You had it right to begin with -- junk silver.

Different question, same mindset -- why would anybody slab an $8 coin?

CT-er's, your time and money are too valuable to waste when there's so many nice coins out there just waiting for you. Use your time to find them, use your money to buy them. End of rant!

 

What if it turned out to be the 1918/7 S or the 1923 S that, even in that shape, could be worth something.

 

I doubt you could find any buyers, although you haven't showed us the coin.

 

to be honest, it looks like any other dateless STQ, and come on, anyone can sell anything on ebay, even me lol

 

Why not bring the date out? I not only enjoy old silver coins for their metal value but even more for their history. I like knowing the dates my coins were minted and like to think about what was going on in the world when they were made. I always give my dateless buffs a vinegar bath to see what pops up.

 

Unfortunately, you can't restore a date on a silver coin.
Even on nickel coins (read: buffalo nickels) acid treatment is the only thing that will restore a date, that I know of.

 

+1

 

Yep, this topic comes up every once in a while, and the consensus seems to be that it simply can't be done. Silver doesn't work-harden the same way as it flows into the date during striking, and so dates on silver pieces don't resist etching the way dates on copper-nickel do. At least, that's the way I understand it -- I'm not a metallurgist, so I can't run the numbers to verify that that's what's happening.

 

You can use diagnostics to narrow it down quite a bit. Unless they are worn to barely recognizable as SLQs, the 1916, 1917, 1917D and 1917S usually are identifiable without dates. Many of the 1917-1924 type 2's can be dated from only a fragment of the date since terminal 7's, 8's and 9's can only be from the teens, and 0's, 1's, 3's and 4's can only be from the twenties. You can generally separate pre- and post-1925's, as well. Some of the 1928's have a unique mintmark. So even without doing anything heroic, you might get some useful info. BTW, you might get a few hundred dollars for a 1916 even without the date. In fact, I think you even can get them slabbed. So study up before you try pulling up dates.

 

here it is... all I know is that its not 1916 or 1917 (type 1). I tried but you guys are the experts lets see what we can find!

 

Sorry I realized I saved it as pdf not jpeg so I couldn't enlarge the image, as so.

 

I've got one almost exactly like yours. Same wear, same S mintmark. I just assume its a 1918/7...

 

This link describes the 3 types of SLQs. That diagnostic can help you narrow the date range down a bit. You don't always need to see the date to know what the date is. You can find other characteristics on the coin that matches characteristics specific to the dies used in a particular year.

You do not have to have monetary gain from everything you do. You could simply enjoy researching. This is to those that say it's not "worth" your time.

http://coins.about.com/library/US-coin-values/bl-US0025-Standing-Liberty-Quarter-Values.htm

 

The CT-er's here can point out a thousand significant topics to research. All this hand-wringing over a SLICK quarter is baloney. Like silver quarters? Try this:

Learn the die characteristics, and examine real examples of, the various double-die Washington quarters of 1934, 1937, 1942-D, 1943, and 1943-S, and, the 1950 mintmark varieties. You might spot a $100++ coin in junk silver.

Not one collector in a hundred could (and I can't, either).

 

Im sorry, many people do find this a "significant" topic. I thank everyone who IS helping me. So far all youve told me is, its worth just silver, which wasnt even the question
Thank you, but no thank you

 

Ok, your coin is either 26s, 27s, 28s 29s or 30s. That's probably about as good as you're going to get. Sorry, I hoped it would the 18/17s. BTW, I actually pulled one of those from junk silver, so it can be done. Keep looking.

 

Thanks! I had a feeling it was the recessed date version!

 

I doubt it is a "Type III" (recessed date). If it were a 25 or later there would still be a visible date given the amount of wear on the rest of this coin. So, it is actually more likely a 17, 18, 19, 20, 23 or 24 (ie "Type II").

 

That does happen to make more sense than my theory... Thanks