Hi Ben. I found one of these nickels in 1958 or 1959 when I first started collecting. When I took it to my local coin store, the owner said it was unusual because it should have a mint mark over the dome. Then there was another guy in the store and he said he heard that in World War 2, Hitler was producing these to destroy the American economy! I guess a nickel carried a lot more weight back then! Funny story!
I hunted a FANTASTIC nickel box that had a collection of buffaloes and war nickels and my fiancée found the Henning nickel. We had no idea what it was at first until we looked it up
Joe Cronin just published a very excellent book recently about Henning nickels that you might want to snag a copy of before it's out of print. I had a 44 with a worn down P that got me really excited until I scoped it. Can't wait to find one in the wild someday.
I actually started coin collecting with old Jefferson nickels when I was 5 or 6 years old and I am now 55 now . I can spot a old Jefferson pretty easy and when I say old I mean any nickel older than 1960. My dad would get change from change machine and I would get any old nickels or silver. I knew about the Henning nickel but I have never found one in all the years I have been collecting so they have to be pretty rare.
I have one that I bought on eBay just like the one you have. I don’t collect counterfeit coins really, but this one I just really wanted because I love history.
Interesting guy, got away with long enough for them to be found in circulation today, remember finding those and throwing back in rolls, lol, now they’re going for big bucks on the bay and writing books about them.
The fact the eBay lets contemporary counterfeits get sold is a big tell, BITD they wouldn’t allow those sales, even copy coinage by Gallery Mint Museum coinage got banned for a few years with the word „copy“ on the coin.
This reminds me… I do a lot of metal detecting around Chicago. I dug up a very peculiar looking war nickel. It’s not a Henning nickel, has the large mint mark, but the whole thing just looks off. And besides the odd look, it’s slightly corroded and appears to be bronze or copper underneath a nickel surface. I hope that makes sense. It weighs 4.9 grams. Does this sound like a legit war nickel that just looks odd from being in the ground for years? I’ve dug other war nickels that don’t look like this one.
Hey Ben, thank you for the vlog! I've heard about the Henning nickels but did not read up on it like you have. I wonder how many of those could be still out there in the wild?
Interesting! I didn't know anything about these. I wonder how many I've had over my lifetime. I shared this on my Facebook page. Maybe it'll get you a few more views.
You would think someone smart enough to be an engineer would realize that investing $7k and risking federal prison to counterfeit nickels is a poor risk/reward proposition. I wonder if he even made the $7k back before he got busted.
That guy in Toronto was buying $2 coins off Temu for .42 each for a long time. Greed got him because he tried to buy $40,000 Cdn at once and customs got suspicious... Never forget that Fortune favors The Bold.
Learned something new today . Most ppl would of nvr guessed that a nickle would of been counterfeited I'm going to have to keep an eye out cuz I'm sure some lcs don't pay Attention to nickles that closely.
