1944 no mintmark nickels - a question

Zulan · November 17, 2004 8:31AM

I have recently learned a new coin fact. There was a man who counterfeited nickels back in the 1950’s named Henning. Apparently he thought he would not get caught if he stuck to nickels. He made a glaring error when he started producing nickels with a 1944 date that had no silver content, and no big mintmark.

There is an interesting discussion on the topic
here.

My question is this... are there any "real" mint errors for 1944 nickels that had no mintmark? Or are thay all Henning nickels?

fcloud · November 17, 2004 8:38AM

I doubt if any coins missing the mint mark were produced by the mint. -- And if there were they probably would be considered counterfiet anyway.

kranky · November 17, 2004 8:52AM

I have never heard of a genuine 1944 no-mint mark nickel.

JrGMan2004 · November 17, 2004 8:58AM

It could be possible that coins could have been struck with a filled MM....

lsica · November 17, 2004 9:11AM

I always had heard the Henning counterfeits were such good counterfeits. Judging from those pictures they actually look pretty bad to me.

longtimecollector · November 17, 2004 9:35AM

I've got a 44 that 99 outta 100 people would say has "no" mintmark........ It's probably an AU 58, with lots of silver luster, but apparently struck thru grease on the reverse....... It takes the proper combination on light and viewing angle to even see a hint of the mintmark.......................................................................................

coppercoins · November 17, 2004 11:11AM

<< <i>It could be possible that coins could have been struck with a filled MM.... >>

VERY highly doubtful considering the size of the mintmark.

seanq · November 17, 2004 11:15AM

I recall seeing a 1943 listed on eBay some time ago, but it was a lower grade and could have been altered or damaged. Like coppercoins said, with a mintmark that size, it's highly unlikely a die could have been pressed into use without one.

Sean Reynolds

cladking · November 17, 2004 11:58AM

There are no 35% silver nickels struck by dies without mint marks. It would be
very surprising if there weren't significant numbers of coins of any date that were
struck by filled dies.

The Henning coins look fairly good at arms lenght. They tend to be a little darker
than regular cu/ni nickels so they fit in fairly well. Even high grade pieces tend to
look to be in VF condition and many of the extant pieces circulated a while. Close
inspection will reveal many flaws especially in the smoothness of the lines such as
the profile.

Conder101 · November 17, 2004 9:26PM

There are also other diagnostics on Henning's reverse dies. Most noticably the hole in the leg of the R in pluribus. It is important because Henning struck counterfeits of other dates besides 1944 and those years were NOT war nickel dates so they were supposed to be coppernickel and not have the large mintmark.

It wuld be interesting to see a collection of Henning counterfeits. Talk about a challenge.

jtwax · November 17, 2004 11:29PM

In my experience there have been no reports of any "real" missing Mint mark war era issues.

Other Jefferson Counterfeits...

1944 no mintmark nickels - a question

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