1966

The 1966 Jefferson nickel had a total mintage of 156,208,283 coins across Philadelphia and Denver, produced without mintmarks as part of the continued anti-hoarding policy. The coin is abundant in all grades and readily available in Mint State. Strike characteristics are generally strong, and Full Steps examples exist in adequate numbers for specialist demand at modest premiums.

Collectors building complete Jefferson nickel sets acquire the 1966 without difficulty. The coin is typical of mid-1960s Jefferson production under the mintmark suspension policy. The absence of a mintmark makes date-and-mint distinction impossible for 1965-1967 coins, which collectors treat as single annual entries without Philadelphia and Denver distinctions.

1966 was the year Medicare began providing health insurance for Americans over 65, and the year the Black Panther Party was founded in Oakland. The Jefferson nickels struck that year circulated through a country experiencing the full flowering of the civil rights movement, the growing opposition to the Vietnam War, and the emergence of the counterculture that would define the late 1960s.