1939 Nickel

Sweet ! I also been looking for one of those about 15 years now ... congrats !

About a year ago I visited coin shop in the nearest metro area. For some reason during a casual discussion they mentioned that they had a small bag of "counterfeit" coins. So I took a look. there were some modern Chinese junk, but also some older cast lead Barbers, etc. They said I could pick any from the bag for $5 each. One coin was a 1944 no-"P" nickel. So I bought it and later that night researched it on the internet and confirmed what I had suspected - that it was a Henning nickel. While researching I discovered that Henning made other dates as well. I remembered that when I looked through the bag earlier in the day there was another non-war-time nickel in it, but I didn't remember the date.

So a year later (earlier today) I was driving near that shop on the highway. Traffic was slow so I decided to check out the shop again. I asked if they had a bag of counterfeits. They said yes, but couldn't find it. I looked at some other coins and bought a couple. I was about to leave when they found the small bag of counterfeits. I took a look and there was still a nickel in there - a 1939. This time they were $2.50 each. So I bought this coin. I still don't know how they knew that both the 1944 and 1939 nickels were counterfeits, but didn't seem to know anything about Henning or the value of them.

A counterfeit of a counterfeit maybe ?

For what its worth, I have been searching for diagnostic information on these and the coin that Loco posted exhibits the same characteristics of a newly discovered 1954 nickel, perhaps the missing 6th die? The 1954 has the same hole in the R and the same die crack from dome to rim.