Henning Nickels

i know there's a loop or hole in the R in "Pluribus", but does that apply to all the nickels? I've seen a couple of images from some supposed '39 Hennings that have this hole. It's the same as the hole on the '44. but i'd rather some experts chime in on this than me just speculating, looking for possibly the wrong things.

Image: 1939henningRcloseup.jpg
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Here is a photo of the R on my 1939 Henning nickel. Not all Henning nickels have this hole in the R. Henning claims to have made 6 reverse dies. But he could have made several with the hole in the R. When I see 1944 no P's for sale they are about 50 percent with the hole and 50 percent without. I currently have 23 Henning 1944 no p nickels, 11 with the hole and 12 without. Just this past Friday I took some to the Baltimore Coin Show and showed them to Mike Ellis to get his opinion about the type of die Henning made. Mike agreed with my opinion that Henning made the dies with an EDM process. The quality is poor and on examples that are not as worn you can see small bumps or pimples. On the reverse with the hole in the R, I noticed there are 3 small dots inside the M of UNUM. But this isn't noticeable on the worn nickels. All of the nickels have a grainy appearance to them and the details are mushy. I think his dies were like this so even slightly worn Henning nickels lack detail.

Let's try this again.

Image: 1939HenningObv.jpg
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Image: 1939HenningRev.jpg
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I know. I can't figure out why these two pictures aren't coming through. Henning nickels are counterfeit nickels made by Francis Henning in the mid 50's. He was a counterfeiter and not a numismatist so he paired a 1944 obverse with a non wartime reverse creating the 1944 no p nickel. He used regular nickel composition material instead of the war time composition. Besides 1944, he also claims to have made 1939, 1946, 1947, 1953 and one other obverse die that he never revealed the date. He was convicted and jailed for this in 1956. His nickels are not good quality but good enough to still circulate. I found the 1939 about 2 or 3 years ago.

Nope I don't know
LOL
I hope that these posts teach me something I've been trying to learn and have asked about before here. There are at least 4 Hennings and maybe a second variety of the 1944 No P.
Glad this discussion popped up again. Lets get to the bottom of it.

Wheezydog, the hole in your R is not the diagnostic hole and might just be damage. Take a good look at it and let me know what you think. The hole that is always talked about is the same one that I showed above in my 1939. All of my 1944's with the hole look like this. None of my 1944's without the hole look like yours at the R. So if your smaller hole is not damage then maybe you have another one of hte reverse dies. That is what I am trying to do by getting as many Hennings as I can. There is very little information out there on these and I am trying to build as much info as I can and then write an article. Wheezy, are you coming down to the York show on April 11th? Or maybe the Lancaster show April 4th? I can bring my 1944's and my 1939 for you to see.

Yes, the government confiscated everything in his warehouse and reused the planchet material he had since it was so close to their spec. That is why the dates other than the no p are hard to distinguish. I read before that the weight of the Henning nickels is 5.4g but when I weighed mine I always got 5.0-5.2g. When I weighed nickels from the 50's they weighed 4.7g-5.1g. So I thought the 5.4g was high and the weight of the Henning is too close to use as a factor. Since then I have found some less worn Hennings and they weigh 5.3g. So now I think weight could possibly be a factor but only on the less circulated Hennings.