The war-nickels of 1942-1945 were quite special creatures in the American 5-cent series. They were silver rather than copper-nickel in color when new, and after a few years in circulation the difference in color tended to become even more pronounced.
More obviously, however, to aid the postwar withdrawal and retirement of these silver coins, the war-nickels of 1942-1945 had uniquely large mintmarks, very prominently placed. Even Philadelphia, which as the “mother” mint had never before placed a mintmark on a U.S. coin, marked its war-nickels with a large P.
Mr. Henning somehow missed all of this. Mr. Henning’s counterfeit 1944 nickels were of the usual copper-nickel rather the wartime silver, and his bogus 1944 nickels were of the usual “no mintmark” Philadelphia variety, rather than the “big P” of the 1942-1945 wartime type.
In other words, Mr. Henning’s “1944 nickels” were easy to tag as counterfeits, even by people with only a basic knowledge of contemporary American coinage.
Mr. Henning was unlucky in at least two more respects. Coin collecting was a fast-growing hobby at the time, and thousands of Americans—adults and children alike—were checking their change daily. And then, finally, within the growing hobby of coin collecting, the Jefferson nickel series was most definitely one of the rising stars, and one of the modern American coins beginning to get the most speculative attention.
Poor Mr. Henning got three years in jail and had to pay a $5,000 fine. The amount of the fine may only be a coincidence, but then maybe not. Five thousand bucks? Exactly 100,000 nickels!
v.