Jefferson Nickels (1938–Present)

The Competition, the Winner, and the Forced Redesign

In January 1938, the Mint announced an open competition for the nickel's new design, specifying that entries must feature Thomas Jefferson on the obverse and his home, Monticello, on the reverse, with a prize of $1,000 for the winner. The deadline was April 15, and by mid-March so few entries had arrived that officials wondered whether the competition would draw enough participants. The slow start was deceptive: many artists had planned to enter and submitted their work close to the deadline. On April 20, Mint Director Nellie Tayloe Ross and a panel of three sculptors reviewed 390 entries. Four days later they announced the winner: Felix Schlag, a German immigrant who had arrived in the United States only nine years earlier.¹

Schlag's obverse, based on a bust of Jefferson by French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon, won on its merits. His reverse, however, did not. Schlag had depicted Monticello from a corner angle, giving the building a three-quarter perspective that the Fine Arts Commission found unsuitable. They required him to replace it with a straight-on frontal view. The Commission also objected to his proposed lettering style, which Schlag found inexplicable. His objections were noted and overruled. The production version carries the revised front-facing Monticello with period-appropriate lettering. Schlag submitted his revised design without including his initials, either by oversight or misunderstanding; they were finally added in 1966, after a campaign by Coin World and numismatic columnist Mort Reed. Schlag noted that he would have preferred his full initials, FOS, rather than the abbreviated FS that was applied.²

Production began at all three mints on October 3, 1938, and the coins were officially released to circulation on November 15. Contemporary accounts report that the Jefferson nickel was widely hoarded on introduction and was not commonly seen in circulation until 1940.

Design Overview: Five Major Eras

The Wartime Nickels (1942–1945)

When the United States entered World War II, nickel was identified as a critical strategic material, essential for armor plating, aircraft components, and naval applications. On March 27, 1942, Congress authorized the Mint to alter the nickel's composition. The overriding requirement was that the new alloy avoid nickel entirely while still passing the counterfeit detection devices in the nation's vending machines. The Mint's solution was a ternary alloy of 56 percent copper, 35 percent silver, and 9 percent manganese. This mixture satisfied the vending machine requirements and contributed the desired metal savings to the war effort.³

To make wartime nickels easy to identify for later segregation, the Mint stamped a large mint mark above the dome of Monticello on the reverse of all wartime issues. This was the first time the Philadelphia Mint's P mark had ever appeared on an American coin: Philadelphia had historically used no mark, the absence of a letter serving as its identifier. The wartime nickels carry this large P, D, or S above the dome, providing an unambiguous visual signal that distinguishes them from every other Jefferson nickel before or after.

The wartime alloy's softer composition had an unexpected benefit for collectors: the metal flowed more completely into die details during striking, producing generally sharper impressions at the architectural steps of Monticello and elsewhere. Many wartime issues are among the best-struck coins of the entire Jefferson series, though the 1944-S and 1945-S are exceptions noted for weak strikes. The wartime nickels were never formally recalled after the war; the postwar standard alloy was simply reinstated in 1946, and wartime examples remained in circulation until removed by collectors or attrition.

Identifying a wartime nickel is straightforward: the large mint mark above the Monticello dome is the definitive marker. Wartime nickels are the same weight as standard issues (5.0 grams), not heavier, as the alloy change left the authorized weight specification unchanged. They often develop darker toning as the manganese oxidizes. Any wartime nickel in any grade carries silver content of approximately 0.05626 troy ounces, giving it intrinsic melt value above face regardless of numismatic condition.

Full Steps: The Series' Most Distinctive Grading Premium

The most consequential collecting standard specific to the Jefferson nickel series is the Full Steps designation, awarded by PCGS and NGC to coins on which the horizontal steps of Monticello's portico are sharply and completely defined. Five or six full, uninterrupted step lines must be clearly visible without softness or merging at any point. The standard exists because the Monticello steps are among the deepest recesses in the reverse die and are the last areas to fill with metal during striking. A coin can be brilliant, lustrous, and fully original in all other respects while still showing soft, blurred, or partially merged steps.⁴

The practical consequence is that Full Steps examples command dramatic premiums over non-Full Steps coins of identical date, mint mark, and surface grade, sometimes multiples of the standard price. For dates known to be notoriously weakly struck, particularly many Denver issues of the 1940s and 1950s and certain late-series Philadelphia dates, a Full Steps example may be not merely premium-priced but genuinely rare, with certified populations in single digits or low double digits regardless of how many millions of the standard issue were struck. The wartime silver nickels generally produce more Full Steps examples than the copper-nickel issues, due to the softer alloy's better die-filling properties.

Key Dates and What Drives Scarcity

The 1950-D is the defining key date of the series and the lowest-mintage regular business strike with only 2,630,030 pieces produced. Its scarcity was recognized relatively quickly, and a substantial portion of the issue was saved by collectors and dealers before seeing circulation, a pattern that made circulated examples uncommon but left a reasonable supply of lower Mint State coins in the market. Full Steps 1950-D specimens are a different proposition entirely and represent a serious advanced collecting challenge. The 1939-D, with 3,514,000 pieces, holds the second-lowest business strike mintage in the series and is significantly scarcer in well-preserved condition than its nominal availability would suggest.⁵

The 1942-P was struck in both the standard copper-nickel alloy and the wartime silver alloy, making it unique in the series as the only date existing in both compositions. Standard-alloy 1942-P examples carry no large mint mark and are distinguishable from the wartime-alloy 1942-P by the absence of the large P above the dome. Other semi-keys from the postwar period include the 1949-S (9,716,000), 1951-S, and 1955-P, all of which had relatively modest mintages that translate to meaningful premiums in higher grades. San Francisco issues from the late 1960s onward were produced primarily as Proofs for collector sets rather than as business strikes, giving those dates a different collector profile.

The 1939 Doubled Monticello and Notable Varieties

The most visually striking early variety is the 1939 Doubled Monticello, in which a shift in the hub die during coining die preparation produced sharp doubling of the MONTICELLO inscription and the FIVE CENTS legend on the reverse. Well-struck examples from an original mintage of over 120 million are identifiable without magnification. The 1954-S over D and 1955-D over S are overmintmark varieties arising from the Mint's practice of repunching existing dies, as are several other overmintmark coins scattered through the series. The 1943-P 3/2 overdate, visible as a ghosted 2 beneath the 3 in the date, is among the most obvious overdates in twentieth-century American coinage and can be seen with the naked eye on good specimens.⁶

The Westward Journey Series and Design Changes Since 2004

The 2004 and 2005 commemorative nickel series marked the first time Monticello had been removed from the coin's reverse since the design's introduction. Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia sponsored legislation after reassurance that Monticello would return in 2006, producing the American 5-Cent Coin Design Continuity Act, signed by President Bush on April 23, 2003. The four Westward Journey reverses, Peace Medal (designed by Mint sculptor Norman E. Nemeth) and Keelboat (by Mint sculptor Alfred Maletsky) in 2004, and American Bison and Ocean in View in 2005, were accompanied by a new Jefferson obverse in 2005. The 2004 coins retained Schlag's 1938 profile; for 2005, artist Joe Fitzgerald designed a new right-facing Jefferson portrait with the word LIBERTY taken from Jefferson's handwritten draft of the Declaration of Independence. Jamie Franki designed the American Bison reverse; Fitzgerald also designed the Ocean in View reverse.⁷

In 2006 Jamie Franki's forward-facing portrait replaced the profiles that had served the series since its beginning, drawing on an 1800 study of Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale. The word LIBERTY on this obverse again appears in Jefferson's own script. Schlag's Monticello reverse returned in a sharpened version, with the FS initials relocated there since the Schlag obverse on which they originally appeared was no longer in use. The 2026 issues carry the dual date 1776~2026 on the obverse to mark the nation's Semiquincentennial, making them the first Jefferson nickels with commemorative dual dating.⁸

Building the Set

For beginning collectors, the Jefferson nickel offers something genuinely unusual among American series: a substantial portion of the date set can still be assembled from circulation or inexpensive rolls, and the wartime silver issues are identifiable by inspection without specialized knowledge beyond looking for the large letter above the Monticello dome. A complete date-and-mint set from 1938 through the current year requires a substantial number of pieces, with the 1950-D being the only issue that demands a deliberate and budgeted purchase. Most other dates are available at modest cost in Very Fine or better circulated condition.

Pursuing Full Steps designations across the series adds an entirely different dimension for advanced collectors, transforming what appears to be an accessible set into a genuinely challenging technical endeavor. Some dates require years to locate in Full Steps at any grade level; others appear with relative frequency. Proof issues were struck across most of the series' lifespan and are broadly available in mid-range grades, with early Proofs from 1938 through 1942 being the most specialized and expensive subset. Michael Wescott's The United States Nickel Five-Cent Piece provides the most comprehensive date-by-date analysis of the series from a specialist perspective; Bowers's A Guide Book of Buffalo and Jefferson Nickels covers both collecting context and variety cataloguing.