In Search Of Anyone Who Owns Or Knows Of A 1953 Henning Nickel

Try this:

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

IIRC, contemporary news stories suggest that Henning began with 1947 counterfeits. Some of the stories suggest that he turned a sizeable number of his counterfeits in to a bank, and the teller questioned why he had so many 1947 nickels. That, supposedly, was a motivation for using a variety of dates. The myth or mystery of the nickels dumped in the river may also relate to the supposed sixth obverse and reverse dies. The 1944 was clearly what precipitated his arrest. It is not unreasonable to suspect that was the last date or close to the last date he counterfeited. Many news stories suggest that he lost money on every counterfeit because of materials and labor expenses. Some ancestry sites suggest that he died in Massachusetts in 1963.

A few thoughts on the hunt:
There may never have been a sixth die. Henning was a thief, and it is hardly a stretch to imagine a thief being a liar.
We are approaching two-thirds of a century since his arrest. That's a very long time for collectors to hunt for examples. I seriously doubt that there is an undiscovered date still lurking in the wild.
Weight, porosity, apparent wear, poor strike quality, and surface appearance are possible indicators, but we need to remember that the three mints did not exactly strike pristine five cent pieces during this era, either. I suspect that specific gravity would be a better indicator.
The damaged "R" is still the best eyeball indicator for non-1944 Hennings.
Oxymoron aside, and authenticated Henning counterfeit is the way to go for the non-1944, non-damaged-"R" examples.
Hennings deserve to be considered with the other famous contemporary counterfeits, such as the micro-O Morgans.
It might be fun to submit FOIA requests for the inventory of items seized in connection with his arrest.

Found one listed on EBAY. Looks legit, but the price? Wow!

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1953-Henni...AOSwAaVfxzLc

Interesting. This is the first I've heard of this. What I'm curious about is why someone would go through the trouble to counterfeit Jefferson nickels (when one could have instead counterfeit more valuable currency), even in the 1950's when making them didn't incur a loss.

@fortcollins You talk about an "authenticated Henning counterfeit" in your post. Will grading companies actually authenticate these as a "genuine counterfeit" coin--or do they just seize them instead?

It would be easy if all Henning nickels had the looped R and/or the die crack marker, but my understanding is that some don't have either. I agree that the 1953 currently listed on eBay does not have the look of a Henning, but other than surface appearance and possibly high weight, I'm not sure if there is a sure way of confirming a non-1944 Henning.

He was making circulating counterfeits, and if he made larger denominations, and didn't want to be caught, he would have had to use roughly the proper alloy (90% silver) which would have increased his expenses greatly for not much increase in profit. The profit from each quarter would have still been roughly the same as from each nickel. And for the most part no one paid as much attention to their base metal nickels as they would to their silver coins.

Ran some numbers and his profit from a counterfeit quarter of proper alloy in 1953 would have been about 3 cents per coin.