What do you do with your dateless buffaloes?

[HPMBTT]

Alright, I thought I would start a new thread, and it's my first thread, as I'm new and all (I posted my Intro in the other forum).

What do you guys do with your dateless buffaloes? Are they even worth anything? I've only got two dateless so far, out of a $100 brick searched; my others are clean, with date and at least VG, so they are keepers. Of course, someday, I am sure that I will have several rolls of dateless, but won't know what to do with them. Looking forward to some of your responses.

[twentybux]

I keep all the buff's I can find whether they have dates or not. Welcome to the madness!

[slvrbck]

IMO all buffs are keepers. Someday if you have alot and need cash I guess you could sell some.

[maoguinn]

One of the coin shops in my city said dateless buffaloes are worth at least 30 cents each. It would not hurt to hold on to them for awhile.

[GTOJohn]

for no reason - i just keep them set aside in a plastic container -

[Guest]

I have yet to find one.

[fb101]

waiting for a time when I will sell them. I have a couple of rolls dateless I have found.

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

Alright, I thought I would start a new thread, and it's my first thread, as I'm new and all (I posted my Intro in the other forum).

What do you guys do with your dateless buffaloes? Are they even worth anything? I've only got two dateless so far, out of a $100 brick searched; my others are clean, with date and at least VG, so they are keepers. Of course, someday, I am sure that I will have several rolls of dateless, but won't know what to do with them. Looking forward to some of your responses.

Yes! 5 cents!! Welcome to the club!

I never throw away buffs. Keep searching, you will find many more. The US keeps debasing it's own currency and even dateless buffs will hold nickel value.

[Dave]

My coin shop said they would buy them for 50 cents, they sell them to someone in the southwest for jewlery making.

[lewbo]

I got a bunch, wish I had a way to get them too you Dave 50 cents a piece would be a nice return. Send me their info and I will ship them.

[fb101]

If the coin shop is giving .50 for them , you know they're getting a buck apiece. Lets find out where in the southwest they're shipping them.

[999Ni]

Why don't you put them in vinegar for a few days and see if a date appears?

[HPMBTT]

Wow, some nice responses here. A couple of things:

1. 50 cents a piece is great if you can get it..that's a heck of a ROI. Even 30 cents is great. I'll keep saving all of my buffalo nickels...
2. For 999Ni regarding vinegar....I would NOT put pennies in vinegar, as it ruins the old pennies with the natural brown patina on it (especially 1960s/70s pennies). I know, as I have ruined a few this way that were supposed to go into the Dansco album. You lose any value on the pennies. Even the dealer told me that they had to turn away a guy on this recently, despite his having rare pennies. Now then, with regards to nickels and vinegar, hmm...anyone care to comment? I'm not sure what vinegar does to cupronickel. I know that there are tons of threads on treasurenet about this. I only use warm water and a soft cloth, period (no soap), as I wish to retain any numismatic value. Then again, if they are already dateless and one doesn't care about the condition of the coin, then that's different. Sorry for going slightly off-topic.

[Sheikh_yer_Bu'Tay]

Wow, some nice responses here. A couple of things:

1. 50 cents a piece is great if you can get it..that's a heck of a ROI. Even 30 cents is great. I'll keep saving all of my buffalo nickels...
2. For 999Ni regarding vinegar....I would NOT put pennies in vinegar, as it ruins the old pennies with the natural brown patina on it (especially 1960s/70s pennies). I know, as I have ruined a few this way that were supposed to go into the Dansco album. You lose any value on the pennies. Even the dealer told me that they had to turn away a guy on this recently, despite his having rare pennies. Now then, with regards to nickels and vinegar, hmm...anyone care to comment? I'm not sure what vinegar does to cupronickel. I know that there are tons of threads on treasurenet about this. I only use warm water and a soft cloth, period (no soap), as I wish to retain any numismatic value. Then again, if they are already dateless and one doesn't care about the condition of the coin, then that's different. Sorry for going slightly off-topic.

Well, it's your thread. Take it anywhere you want it to go.

I will have to look up treasurenet and see what they have to say about getting black tarnish off old silver coins.

[ZigMeister]

There is a product called Nic-A-Date sold at coin shops and on ebay that brings out the date on Dateless Buffalos. We had a Nic-A-Date night at a recent coin club meeting where members brought in their Dateless Buffalos and we had fun bringing out the dates. A prize was given to the member with the highest value date. Nic-A-Date does leave an acid stain on the date area. You put a drop on the date area and leave on for about 60 seconds and then rinse off. Someone mentioned that sets of Nic-A-Date buffalos do sell on eBay.

[HPMBTT]

What a cool little contest! That actually sounds like fun.

[Copper Catcher]

I got some dateless buffalos awhile back... I'd love to sell them at .50 each...Dave, if you want to broker this for me I'd let you have them at .45 and you could make .05 for your time... let me know if you are interested.

[Hawkeye]

I always keep my dateless buffs. I even sometimes buy them if I can get them cheap enough. I just like the way they look and, I figure that they're not making any more of them so I might as well keep all of them I can get. Maybe that's the "hoarder" in me.

[jasmatk]

if you guys want them you should come to the flea market by me plenty of people selling at 10-25 cents w/o dates w/ dates .30-$1 I dont look twice at them maybe i should start

[Dano]

I recently had a teller sell me a complete roll of dateless buffaloes. I bought a bottle of nic-a-date and had a blast revealing the worn dates. I even found a semi-key date that. I needed. I'm going to start a Whitman folder of only "restored" buffalo nickels and see how far I can get. The way I see it, before restoration the nickel was worth.only face value or maybe a small premium for novelty. At least now I know the date and mint mark. I've read that you can even discern overdates with the use of nic-a-date!

[HPMBTT]

Nice! A complete roll...sigh. Wish that was me.

[linkster]

I used to go to banks and get 40-50 bucks of nickels and search for ones to fill a whitman. One time I went into the main branch downtown and asked for 40 bucks in nickels and the teller asked what I wanted them for and I said I collected old ones and she gave me 18 rolls of semi/totaly dateless buffalos and 2 rolls of warnicks.... I spent the whole summer nic-a-dating them and actually filled the entire folder except for the late 30s which I guess didn't circulate too much to get that worn. There is also a product called nic-a-lene which takes the acid stain off of the treated nickel, but it doesnt hide that rough apperance of the grain structure of the metal that is left. I guess next time I go to mu parents house I should get my herd/staxh of buffalos and put them on ebay and convert that to more pennys/nickels boxes stacked in the old vault/basement. I also searched my second box of nickels today in over 20 years and found one dateless S mint buffallo and 4 warnicks............I misss the good ole days of roll hunting.........wish I hadn't put that on the backburner for the past 20 years............

[twentybux]

Well link, no time like the present. Welcome aboard!

[misteroman]

I need a few rolls of dateless buffs if anyone would like to sell some

[PreservingThePast]

I used to go to banks and get 40-50 bucks of nickels and search for ones to fill a whitman. One time I went into the main branch downtown and asked for 40 bucks in nickels and the teller asked what I wanted them for and I said I collected old ones and she gave me 18 rolls of semi/totaly dateless buffalos and 2 rolls of warnicks.... I spent the whole summer nic-a-dating them and actually filled the entire folder except for the late 30s which I guess didn't circulate too much to get that worn. There is also a product called nic-a-lene which takes the acid stain off of the treated nickel, but it doesnt hide that rough apperance of the grain structure of the metal that is left. I guess next time I go to mu parents house I should get my herd/staxh of buffalos and put them on ebay and convert that to more pennys/nickels boxes stacked in the old vault/basement. I also searched my second box of nickels today in over 20 years and found one dateless S mint buffallo and 4 warnicks............I misss the good ole days of roll hunting.........wish I hadn't put that on the backburner for the past 20 years............

I know!!! I kick myself on a daily basis for not having continued what I did on a semi-regular basis in the past. Just got back into this coin roll hunting a little over two years ago and caught the numismatic bug this time around.