Hello, Everyone! Today I will be talking about no-date Buffalo nickels. Although unpopular, they are a common part of coin collecting and actually have a somewhat funny theory of why the date on these coins wore off easily. With so much to know, let’s get started!

The Missing Date

��Unfortunately, if you have found a Buffalo nickel with no date, you most likely have not found a rare and valuable variety. The date has just worn off over time due to many people handling and rubbing the coin. But then, how come the dates on other coins don’t wear off very often, even if almost all the other details have been completely worn away? This is due to the location of the date.

��The date on Buffalo nickels is very close to the edge of the coin, which is most often the part of the coin that is worn away the easiest. More importantly, the date is placed on a part of the coin that has a high relief and is very vulnerable to wear. This is because higher features of the coin are allowed to touch and rub on more things than low relief portions of the design because fingers don’t have to press hard to rub higher elements, but someone would really have to rub hard to wear a low relief part of the design. The date on most coins is placed on a low relief feature of the coin to avoid wear, but for some reason the date on the Buffalo nickel was placed on one of the highest points of the design. Why would the Mint do this?

��There is actually a very funny theory as to why the date on Buffalo nickels was placed in this poor location on the design. The theory goes that sculptor Charles Barber was mad that the Mint decided to change the design on the nickels from his Liberty Head design to James Earle Fraser’s new Buffalo design. So, when sculpting the Buffalo nickel design for the new dies, he decided to get some revenge on Fraser and purposely sculpted the date part of the design to be in a higher relief than Fraser intended it to be. This would make the date wear away quickly and possibly make the Mint get mad at Fraser and his design and the Mint would get rid of his design and put in a new design that Barber created. This may not be true, but it is a fun theory that collectors like to believe is true.

��Discovering the Date of a No-Date Buffalo Nickel

��As you know, the date on Buffalo nickels is in the bottom left portion of the design on the Indian’s shoulder. Sometimes, a Buffalo nickel will look like it has no date at first, but if you mess around with magnification and lighting, you may be able to extract a date. If you have tried lots of different lighting and magnification techniques and still can’t see a date, you can try using an acid to extract a date. This should be your last resort because using acid makes the area around the date dark and it can greatly decrease the coin’s value. However, while a no-date coin is worth less than a dollar, if you use acid to discover you have a key date coin, the coin can still be worth a significant amount of money. This often makes it worth it to use acid. The most popular and common acid used to extract a date on a Buffalo nickel is Nic-a-Date.

��Clearly, although unpopular and frowned upon, no-date Buffalo nickels are somewhat unique and have a pretty fun story to boot. Thanks for reading and have a great day!�