Jefferson Nickel

History

The Buffalo nickel reached the 25-year mark in 1938, the point at which a circulating design could be replaced without further legislation, and the Treasury announced a public design competition that January with a prize of $1,000. The theme was fixed in advance: entrants had to place Thomas Jefferson on the obverse and Monticello, his house near Charlottesville, on the reverse, timed to the bicentennial of Jefferson's birth in 1943. Felix Oscar Schlag won against a field reported at roughly 390 to more than 400 sculptors, but only his obverse reached the coining presses. The Mint discarded his dramatic angled three-quarter view of Monticello and substituted a straight-on elevation of the building, so the circulating coin is a modified version of the winning entry. From 1942 through 1945 nickel metal was diverted to armor plating and the five-cent piece was struck without any nickel at all, in an alloy of 35% silver, 56% copper and 9% manganese, with the first wartime strikes made in October 1942. The type has run continuously since 1938 and remains in production.

Details

Felix Schlag is credited as designer. The standard alloy is 75% copper and 25% nickel, interrupted only by the 1942 to 1945 wartime composition of 35% silver, 56% copper and 9% manganese. Pieces weigh 5.00 grams and measure 21.20 mm across, with a plain edge carrying neither reeding nor lettering. Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco have all struck the type, and on the wartime issues the mint mark was moved to a large letter above the dome of Monticello on the reverse so the silver coins could be identified and pulled from circulation afterward. That arrangement brought the first use of a P mint mark on any United States coin in 1942, Philadelphia having previously struck without one. First-year production at the branch mints was modest by later standards, with 4,105,000 pieces from San Francisco and 5,376,000 from Denver.

Features

The obverse carries a left-facing bust of Jefferson taken from the Jean-Antoine Houdon sculpture. The reverse shows Monticello as a frontal elevation, the Mint's replacement for Schlag's angled rendering, and the flight of steps below the portico is the detail that governs how sharply struck examples are graded. Variety collectors work with a 1943/2-P overdate, D over S and S over D over-mintmarks, and several prominent doubled dies. Repunched mintmarks exist in large numbers across the series, though many are visible only under magnification.

Notable facts

• Schlag was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1891, trained in Munich, emigrated to the United States in 1929 and died in 1974, and the Jefferson nickel was the only coin he ever designed.
• NGC describes the series as coined in very large numbers from the outset with no rarities among the normal date and mint entries, which makes essentially everything of value in the type a condition rarity.
• PCGS assigns separate certification numbers to Full Step coins, so the 1938-D carries #4001 as a regular strike and #84001 with the FS designation.
• A 1938-D in MS68+ with Full Steps brought $33,600 at Heritage in July 2022, while a 1938-S in MS68 without the designation sold for $1,645 at Heritage in August 2016.
• All proof issues from 1950 through 1959 are rare or extremely rare with Deep Cameo contrast, which makes a top-ranked proof set unusually hard to assemble.
• The PCGS basic circulation-strike set for 1938 to 1964 runs 71 coins and awards no bonus points for Full Step designations, while the proof set with major varieties for the same span totals 23 coins.