Buffalo Nickel With No Date: Why It Wore Off and What It's Worth
The short answer
A Buffalo nickel whose date has completely worn away is worth about 15 to 25 cents. Dealers buy them by the roll as "dateless Buffalos" — mostly for jewelry makers and crafters. It is not a mint error and it is not rare: it is simply a coin that circulated so long its date disappeared. Millions of them exist.
Why the date disappears first
The date on a Buffalo nickel sits on the highest point of the entire design — the raised shoulder of the Native American portrait on the front. Every time the coin slid across a counter or rubbed against other coins in a pocket, the date took the friction first. The design was changed in 1913 (Type 1 to Type 2) partly to protect the denomination on the back, but the date stayed exposed for the whole run of the series, 1913 to 1938.
That is why dateless Buffalo nickels are so common: a coin only needed a decade or two of normal use to lose its date, and tens of millions of them circulated that long.
What you can still check
- The mint mark may survive. Flip the coin over and look below FIVE CENTS: a D or S there narrows the possibilities considerably, because some mints struck far fewer coins in some years. Philadelphia coins have no mark.
- The design type tells you the era. A buffalo standing on a raised mound means 1913 (Type 1); a flat line under the buffalo means 1913–1938 (Type 2).
- What you can never recover: the exact year. Even a dealer cannot date a dateless coin reliably, which is exactly why the value stays at 15–25 cents.
Do not use Nic-A-Date on your coin
You will find products like Nic-A-Date — an acid (ferric chloride) that etches the metal and can briefly reveal a shadow of the worn-off date. Collectors consider this damage: the acid leaves a rough, stained patch that is obvious and permanent. Even if the acid reveals a rare date, the coin is now an "acid-treated" coin that serious buyers avoid, and grading services will not assign it a normal grade.
If you genuinely believe the coin might be a key date, the acid gamble usually makes things worse: you risk turning a coin worth 20 cents into a damaged coin worth 10 cents — and a key date with acid damage sells for a fraction of a normal one. When in doubt, leave the coin as it is.
If your Buffalo nickel DOES have a date
Then it may be worth real money. Worn common dates bring $1–2, and key dates like the 1926-S and 1931-S bring far more. Start with the full Buffalo nickel value chart, or jump straight to the dates collectors care about most: