1953 Henning Nickel (I Think I Got One)!

You have 40 Hennings? How 'bout you spread some of those around to those of us who are still looking for ONE?

I was under the impression that it was an artifact of the process he used to make the dies, along with the dimples, rough appearance and other flaws, and would be a chance appearance on just one die. Have you studied your 44s often enough to know how many die pairs they represent?

After all, we're just taking the guy's word on how many dies he claimed to have. There are only five known dates, but he claimed to have six sets of dies. Maybe there were two 44 die pairs, and one each for the other 4 dates?

I always assumed that the '44 was the most common because it would stand out the most as anomalous to a roll hunter, even if they weren't looking or even knew about Hennings. But that theory makes sense too and has more historical heft (though they're not mutually exclusive).

I submit to all that pyrbob is our CCF family expert on Hennings ... and I also pay attention to pyrbob opinions on the topic.

This subject has come up many time in the past ... and here is a link to an archived thread that (at the time) accumulated our best collective knowledge about Henning Jefferson nickels.

With all due respect to CND ... Note ... according to our expertise at that time ... weight alone is NOT a way to be sure!

http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/...PIC_ID=53117

Relative to the OP coin ... I am not sure. The true 'hole in the R' would be good ... but read the thread above and try to match some of the other markers/characteristics that we believe define a Henning.

David

nickelsearcher,

I totally agree that pyrbob is the Forum's resident Henning expert. I probably never would have dug into them as deep as I did if I didn't pull a 1939 example during the nickel survey. I used to come across a number of 1953's and 1954's that look a lot like the OP's coin. I still have them; after reading the above and the old thread that nickelsearcher provided the link to I will have to check them over closely.

I also have the Stuckey book; a friend of mine in Minnesota that is a book collector found it for me a couple years ago. Wouldn't part with that book for anything!

Weight 4.9 g ! I dont think all the hennings are over 5 grams as we saw here before some under 5 g .
Im not sure if I have one btw !

Good point !
I searched a ton of nickels and amaze-me why I never found one 44 no mm on it ?! Or the one with the big classic hole ?! As I live in jersey !
Do you think thy go through th coin counter or its rejected ? I'm startint to think the coin counters separet them otherwise we jersey searchers would come by one more offen (just my guess)!

I saw probably most of pyrbobs Henning nickels at the Williamsport PA Coin show. He also had a 1943 mintmark nickel that was a fake but I don't recall if he said it is attributed to Henning. I only have 1 and it does NOT have a hole in the leg of the R and it is the most common 1944 no mint mark.
I think ( but am not sure ) that all of these Hennings were made from real blank US nickel planchets though, so they would be around 5 grams each which makes the weight a non factor in determining them as Hennings.
I certainly could be wrong. As for the 1953 photo in this thread by the OP, I think it could be a Henning. It has a certain look to it.I think that the Hennings, even if hardly circulated have an appearance of being XF/AU at best because the dies used were made by using a circulated nickel.