Jefferson Nickels

Felix Schlag designed the original Jefferson nickel, winning a public competition in 1938 that drew 390 entries. Schlag was a German-born sculptor living in Chicago, not a Mint insider, and his selection was part of a broader trend in the 1930s toward opening coin design to outside artists rather than leaving everything to the Chief Engraver's office. His winning entry depicted Thomas Jefferson on the obverse and Monticello, Jefferson's Virginia home, on the reverse. The Mint made Schlag revise his original Monticello rendering, which had shown the building at a three-quarter angle, replacing it with a straight-on frontal view that was less dynamic but more architecturally precise. Schlag was not thrilled with the change. The frontal Monticello is a flat, somewhat lifeless image compared to what he originally proposed, and the coin has carried that compromise ever since. His initials, FS, did not appear on the coin until 1966, nearly three decades after the design entered production, an omission that bothered him for years.