1975 Jefferson Five Cents 1965 to Date XF40

History

The Jefferson design came out of a 1937 competition in which the United States Mint invited artists to submit a portrait of Thomas Jefferson to replace the Buffalo nickel, then 25 years old. Some 390 artists entered, and Felix Oscar Schlag, a German-born American sculptor, took the $1,000 award. Schlag died on March 9, 1974, which made 1975 the first full year the type was struck after its designer's death. By then the nickel was a two-mint circulating coin: San Francisco had stopped striking five-cent pieces for general circulation with the Proof-only 1971-S, its first Proof-only nickel since 1878, leaving Philadelphia and Denver to supply commerce.

Details

Felix Schlag designed both sides, and the coin was struck in the standard alloy of 75 percent copper and 25 percent nickel, weighing 5.00 grams on a 21.2 mm planchet with a plain edge. The D mintmark appears on the obverse, at the right side of the field. Denver reported a mintage of 401,875,300 for the 1975 business strike, placing it among the ordinary high-production dates of the 1970s.

Features

Jefferson faces left in a bust closely modeled on Jean-Antoine Houdon's 1789 portrait, with a colonial pigtail, the top of the head nearly touching the rim and the shoulder truncated at the bottom edge. IN GOD WE TRUST arcs down the left side from the chest to the hairline, while LIBERTY and the date run up the right side behind the bust, separated by a small five-pointed star, with the mintmark placed between Jefferson and the date. The reverse shows Monticello, Jefferson's house in Charlottesville, Virginia. Strike quality on the reverse drives the market for the date: Full Steps refers to the sharpness of the steps below the portico, with six steps present on the finest strikes and five full steps still regarded as exceptional, and PCGS maintains a separate Full Steps listing, number 84095, alongside the base issue at 4095.

Notable facts

• The 1975-S Proof nickel was struck to the extent of 2,845,450 pieces.
• Uncirculated 1975-D nickels remain available in original rolls and in 1975 Mint Sets, and an ordinary example trades for roughly $2.
• Certification can run to about $30 per coin all in, exceeding the value of a 1975-D nickel outside the top grades or a Full Steps designation.
• An XF-40 example with a high, misplaced mintmark realized $1,080 at auction.
• An obverse die break variety for the date is catalogued as JNC-75D-4.
• The scarcest regular-issue Jefferson nickels by overall mintage are the 1939-D and 1950-D, a group the 1975-D comes nowhere near.