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 Replies: 32 / Views: 10,927 |
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Rest in Peace
United States
17900 Posts |
Lovely example. Those are always so hard to find even though thousands were made.
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Valued Member
United States
171 Posts |
My bid of $207.65 came in second place :( Congratulations on a neat pick-up. I have a couple 1944 no-P and one 1939 Henning. Henning had a few different obverse dies with different dates. I believe he also had more than one reverse die, and only one of those dies had the looped "R". I think I have 1944 no-P nickels with and without the looped R. My 1939 has the looped R. In general, I believe that the Henning nickels had better details when struck than they are generally given credit for. Because they were placed into circulation and not saved in rolls or bags, they were generally worn down. This is similar to the phenomenon of the vintage counterfeit ("micro-o" family) Morgan dollars. Those are almost always found quite worn. I believe the 1947 shown here originally had better details, but as minted the details were still somewhat fuzzy compared to a normal die state US Mint product. The 1947 also shows the characteristics of a very late die state, as do most Henning nickels. I think the apparent doubling of IGWT is a form of Die Deterioration Doubling. This indicates a high mintage from that die. I think the 1944 no-P mintage was not any higher than the other dates, but the blunder on that one made them much easier to spot and so there are more of those attributed and available in the market than the other dates. |
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Rest in Peace
 United States
1943 Posts |
Sorry Dan. I wondered who the other bidder was.
According to my research, in his interview with the police Henning claimed to have made six obverse dies and six reverse dies. The "hole in the R" is the diagnostic seen on some Hennings but I don't agree it is on one die. I have over 180 Hennings dated 1944 that I bought randomly and approximately half of them have the "hole in the R". So I think the defective R was on the host coin he used to make his die and he made more than one die with it. The two 1939's I have also have this "hole in the R" reverse. Also I have seen several previous posts with off date Hennings and they always had this defective R. That's why I was so interested in this coin.
As far as the weakness of the details on the dies, the reason I say the dies were made with worn coins and didn't have strong details is because I have two 1944's in my group that have square rims and have luster. I had them at the Summer Seminar two years ago and everyone who looked at them said they were basically unc. The details on them show the dies lacked the strong details of a new nickel. I have posted them on here before but I don't know how to link them into this post.
I noticed the IGWT doubling on this coin and that is another thing I want to look into. I like your idea it is from deterioration from use. There was another 1947 Henning posted on CCF in the past and that one does not have doubling on the obverse. It also have the "hole in the R" reverse. Again I don't know how to link it on this post.
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Rest in Peace
United States
1943 Posts |
Go-Rebels, yes it was expensive at $210 but if you look in the wanted section of CCF you will see I have had a wanted post on here since 2012 offering $250 for the off dates but none were ever offered to me. Since this one didn't have the "hole in the R" I would have gone higher.
Zurie, you are correct, the weight of 5.4 grams was also a diagnostic for this coin.
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New Member
United States
8 Posts |
I was also an underbidder on this coin, but I did not go nearly so high as the two of you. I also have some 1944s, with and without the looped R. One has a badly deteriorated area under Jefferson's chin - I imagine this was one of the last coins struck with that die/date. One of my 1944 Hennings is in only very lightly circulated condition with an even blue-gray toning. The kicker is, this is the cheapest Henning I ever bought - it cost me $1 and that auction included a genuine 1944 War Nickel. The seller did not attribute it to Henning, so it was overlooked by other bidders. I recently found a 1953 nickel in rolls from the bank and it looked off to me from the moment I laid eyes on it. It is in sad shape (tarnish, a scratch across Jefferson's portrait, assorted grime and corrosion), but I set it aside for further scrutiny. I sensed (can't quite make it out with my eyes) some raised spots in between some letters in IGWT and on the reverse. I need to get it weighed. Much has been said about Henning having made 6 obverse dies and what the 6th date might be. I am wondering if he did make 6 dies but repeated one of the dates (either made 2 dies from the same coin or one die each from two separate coins of the same date.) That is an interesting theory, pyrbob, that Henning used a master coin with the looped R to make multiple reverse dies. It might well be true, but depending on how he made the dies, I am not sure the original coin would have held up to repeated use for making dies. Spark erosion might have allowed this, but if he "squeezed" the coin against a softened die blank then I would expect that there would have been some distortion to the original coin. I am also interested in the speculation about Henning using worn coins as models, but remember, most of his dates were less than 10 years old (some just a year or two) when copied. I am not sure how much wear there was in that case. For example, if you pull a 2006 nickel from circulation today there won't be that much wear on it. Of course, nickels might have circulated more back then and gotten worn more quickly. I suspect that the softened details might be due more to the method of making the die than the wear on the host coin. I continue to look for Hennings in the wild, with no success other than maybe the 1953. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
3755 Posts |
 Learning. |
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Rest in Peace
United States
1943 Posts |
VTLF welcome to the forum and to the Henning discussion! I agree with you about the sixth die being a 1944. If you search the forum for Henning you will see I mentioned this several times in the past. In the Stuckey booklet he says he made the 1944's first then decided later to mix other dates into the mix. So my thought is he first made two 1944 dies then later made one of each of the other dates to give a better date mixture when he cashed his nickels in claiming to have a vending business. I know Dan said he thinks Henning made as many of each off date as he did the 1944's but they are just not found. But I don't agree with this from my findings. I am hesitant about assuming the 1947 die struck many coins just because it shows Die Deterioration. I don't think we can assume Hennings dies struck as many coins as a US Mint die. When you deal with garage shops decisions are handled differently. The 1947 could have not heat treated as well as the other dies. Or the 1947 could have been a different die steel he experimented with and it didn't hold up. But if you are a garage shop you would use it any way and just get as many strikes out of it as you can. This skews an assumption about how many coins it would strike. As far as his process to make the nickels I don't think he used a squeeze process. All of the nickels have the rough fields to them similar to the spark erosion dies. I think he used a process similar to spark erosion. Again in the Stuckey booklet he tried to tell the secret service that his process was something he developed and he wanted to sell his process possibly even to the mint. But nothing came out of it. Either they didn't believe him or didn't like the process. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
703 Posts |
So I have no experience in things like this......these are legal to own?
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Valued Member
United States
97 Posts |
I've always been interested in these coins but didn't know there were other dates until now. I'll have to look through my old nickel rolls. Is Henning still alive? I've tried to search for interviews or other information on him. If he was only in prison for 3 years at the most I wonder if he ever talked about what he did once he got out.
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Rest in Peace
United States
1943 Posts |
If I remember the timeline correctly, Henning made his nickels 1954 & 1955, was arrested in 1956 and died in the early to mid 1960's.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2271 Posts |
Interesting thread.
I've never heard of an Unc before. Most of these look worn but I always figured they must have looked pretty worn even new. I've never seen even a hint of luster.
Time don't fly, it bounds and leaps.
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New Member
United States
8 Posts |
I am pathetic with technology and won't even attempt a photo until I can figure out how to do it right, but at some point I will try to dig out my best and worst Hennings. The best has great "luster" (no cartwheel effect but fresh surfaces with slight rub on the high points.) The worst has a major die defect under Jefferson's chin - not a clean die break but obviously something was missing from the die as there is lots of extra metal. Thx pyrbob - and I did see your theory about one of the dies being a repeat date after I went back to search old threads. As for how many of Henning's coins were 1944 vs other dates? I am not sure we will ever know, but I like to see the debate/discussion as I think that is the best way to raise and test various theories and speculations. It is easy to speculate that 1944 is the most common date, and it probably is, but it is also true that over time almost every 1944 would have been pulled from circulation and kept as a suspected error or curiosity or obvious fake. The others would have just kept on circulating and suffered whatever fate any other coin of the era might have faced. The only way most of the other dates will ever be found is if they have the looped R on the reverse, although I would love to see some diagnostics and die markers identified for non-looped R reverses. Another interesting thing to consider is how Henning may have used the dies. Did he routinely switch out the obverse dies to get a good mix of dates? If so, did he also switch out the reverse dies? I don't see why he would have - those were all interchangeable (or so he thought, since he ignored the War Nickel variation and apparently never made a 1944 reverse die). So, for example, were all the nickels with looped R reverses made at roughly the same time, until that reverse die wore out? If some dates show up with only the non-looped R reverse, can we assume they were done earlier or later than the looped Rs? If Dwight Stuckey had been able to interview Henning he would most certainly have gotten these answers as he was meticulous about the details. We are lucky, though, that he put together the research that he complied in the early 1980s; I don't think most of that could be recreated today. I had the pleasure and honor of corresponding with him less than a year before he passed away. I had been frustrated by my inability to locate a copy of his pamphlet on the Henning counterfeits, so I tracked him down and luckily he had a few copies left. |
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Rest in Peace
United States
1943 Posts |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
8516 Posts |
Thanks pyrbob for the help. I had forgotten all about the ebay listing. Great info here. Oregon coin geek.....*** GO BEAVS ! ! ! ***
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
3058 Posts |
Nice! I didn't even know they existed. I want one now, LOL.
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Replies: 32 / Views: 10,927 |
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Posted 02/22/2016 3:33 pm
