Key date standing liberty quarter

[lrgoodger]

I own 26 acres of woodland in SW Michigan that used to have a mill on it. The mill site is on property south of the road and is not mine, but one of the more well to do owners had a house on my property about a 1/4 mile back off the road. I noticed years ago that there were wagon ruts going back there. Well, I got it in my head to clean out the brush from the wagon trail and see if I could locate the old house site. After much work, it started looking like a city park back there with all the undergrowth cut and mowed. Still not sure I have found the actual house site, but I think I'm close. I was finding a lot of iron stuff with the old Minelab Sovereign, but I didn't hit any coins. I'm trying out a Deus and it has been getting stuff around the old house up front here that has been gone over many times, so when I got tired of fighting the chatter from the power lines, I went back in the woods where I had cleaned out and there was no interference. I had only been scanning about half an hour when I hit a 95 signal in the midst of a bunch of iron. From 8 inches down came up a standing liberty quarter. I had already been over it with the Sovereign and missed it in the iron. There was no date on it, but the S was clear. I brought it to the house and got it under a magnifier and could see a bit of the top of the last digit in the date. I finally resigned myself to the fact that If I really wanted to know what the date was, I was going to have to use date restorer. I did that and the last digit came out clear as a 3. There was only one standing liberty with a 3 as the last date, and it was 1923. The S meant I had the key date.

Figuring it was not worth anything after using date restorer, I was shocked when I saw them selling over $100 on ebay with restored dates! This one has a more clearly restored 3 than the others currently listed at $130 and $140, so maybe it would go for $200. I'm not sure that makes all the clearing I did worth it (worked on it all summer), but it is a nice start, and a fantastic first coin from the area! I was hoping to scrounge up an indian head or two back there since the house that was back there was built just before 1870, but that remains to be seen.

I added a close up of the restored date with the 3 outlined in case you were having trouble locating it. You should be able to see it clearly in the other date closeup.

 

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[lrgoodger]

I would never try to sell it to a coin dealer. I know they would not want it. But just look up that date on ebay and you will see that collectors are buying them just so they can have something in that slot in their collection. I was shocked to see them selling for over $100.

 

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[JeffInMass]

I've collected that series for about 50 years- other than the 16 & overdate, I'd say that date has proven to be very elusive- I've seen many 1919-D & S's and 21's found, but not the 23-S, so big time Congrats are in order!! Grab one of the big two next!

 

[Clad2Silver]

umm what the heck is date restorer? i've gotta know

Coin date restorers have been around for ages. I had a bottle of a product called "Coin Date" back around 1960 or so. It's a liquid that is in fact a mild acid that when put on SLQ's or Buffalo Nickels, it will eat away some of the metal and you'll see an image of what the date was before it got worn off. It's really nothing more than a ghost image though and can be wiped away with your fingers. Dealers won't buy these coins no matter which dates they are, common or scarce/rare.

 

[Trezurehunter]

Congrats on a nice find.

 

[DownEast_Detecting]

Coin date restorers have been around for ages. I had a bottle of a product called "Coin Date" back around 1960 or so. It's a liquid that is in fact a mild acid that when put on SLQ's or Buffalo Nickels, it will eat away some of the metal and you'll see an image of what the date was before it got worn off. It's really nothing more than a ghost image though and can be wiped away with your fingers. Dealers won't buy these coins no matter which dates they are, common or scarce/rare.

Yeah I looked it up. Probably pretty useless for coin collectors/dealers. But for metal detecting people I think it’s awesome. If you just want to know for sure the date, so you can mark it in your own collection of finds.