The E-Sylum:  Volume 7, Number 13, March 28, 2004, Article 9

COUNTERFEITING CIRCULATING COINS

  In response to my question about recent instances of the
  counterfeiting of circulating coins, Ray Flanigan writes: "Yes,
  people do counterfeit coins - even minor coins.  The most
  famous example was Francis Henning of Erial, NJ, just outside
  Camden, who was caught in 1954 counterfeiting hundreds of
  thousands of 1944 nickels without the P mintmark (that reverse
  die had apparently broken).  Henning has been written up in
  Collector's Clearinghouse and even Rare Coin Review (No. 72
  page 60). Today his nickels sell for upwards of $20 - $30 each.
  Henning was convicted of counterfeiting in Cleveland, Ohio in
  1955 sentenced to 3 years in jail and fined $5,000.  He had
  bought his metal from the same source as the mint paying
  approximately 3 1/2 cents per blank.  Add the cost of the
  press, the cost of engraving and labor to produce each coin
  and you can quickly see why there are not a lot of minor coin
  counterfeiters, but it has been done."

  [But aren't Henning counterfeits technically illegal to own?
  -Editor]

  Bob Leonard writes: "You need to add Dwight H. Stuckey's
  booklet, The Counterfeit 1944 Jefferson Nickel  (Published
  by the author, 1982), to your library.  Stuckey's
  well-researched monograph tells the story of Francis Leroy
  Henning, who pled guilty to counterfeiting nickels, of all things,
  on December 29, 1955, and was sentenced to three years in
  prison for this on January 20, 1956 (he received an additional
  three years for counterfeiting $5 bills). I'm not sure whether
  he was the last person convicted for counterfeiting circulating
  coins, but he is certainly the most famous.

  Henning made the notorious 1944 no-mintmark nickel, plus
  five other obverses including 1939, 1946, 1947, and 1953
  (the last date remains to be discovered).  He claimed to have
  cut the dies directly from coins (yes, by reversing positive and
  negative, to make an incuse die directly from a struck coin)
  using a machine he invented himself, but Jorgen Somod (a
  subscriber to this list, I believe) told me that he believed that
  the dies were simply cast, and that Henning's story was an
  attempt to obtain a reduced sentence.  Henning's nickels
  were struck from Monel metal, 79.1% copper, 20.5%
  nickel, 0.4% iron.  Leftover blanks seized from him were
  actually coined into legal nickels at the Philadelphia Mint in
  1956, after adding the required amount of nickel.  Henning's
  blunder in omitting the mintmark was detected by coin collector
  Harmon K. Rodgers and others, but it took some doing to
  convince the Mint and Secret Service at first."

  [I was aware of the Henning story, but not the book, so I took
  Bob's advice and ordered a copy after finding one for sale
  online. -Editor]

  Joe Boling adds: "There was a case within the past four years
  of large-scale counterfeiting of quarters in or near New Jersey.
  I remember articles reporting the case in the numismatic press."

  [The quarter case Joe Boling mentions is the most recent coin
  counterfeiting case I've heard of in the U.S.  Can anyone supply
  most details?  -Editor]

  Wayne Homren, Editor

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