AUGUST 17
2004•Mint Reveals 144 Designs for 2005 Nickels
2026•Supergirl Comic Art Silver Medal Subscription
The U.S. Mint Reveals 144 Candidate Designs for the 2005 Nickels
On August 17, 2004, the United States Mint announced that it would bring an extraordinary design exhibition to the American Numismatic Association's World's Fair of Money in Pittsburgh: all 144 candidate designs considered for the two 2005-dated Westward Journey nickels. The public display offered collectors a rare look behind the curtain of American coin design, showing not only the images ultimately selected but dozens of alternatives that had been rejected along the way. The 2005 nickels would become historic in their own right, introducing a new forward-facing portrait of Thomas Jefferson and two reverses—American Bison and Ocean in View—that completed the Mint's two-year commemoration of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
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A Coin-Design Exhibition Unlike the Finished Product
Collectors normally encounter only the final coin.
By the time a nickel reaches circulation, the sketches, revisions, competing concepts, advisory recommendations, and rejected alternatives have disappeared from public view.
The August 2004 exhibition turned that process inside out.
Instead of showing only the winning artwork, the Mint planned to display all 144 candidate designs considered for the following year's nickels.
The venue was the American Numismatic Association's World's Fair of Money in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The annual convention is one of the country's most important numismatic gatherings.
Collectors, dealers, auction houses, grading services, museums, researchers, and government mints assemble under one roof.
That made it an ideal place to expose the public to the creative process behind circulating coinage.
The date should be stated precisely.
On August 17, 2004, the United States Mint announced that the complete group of candidate designs would be displayed at the convention.
The World's Fair of Money itself opened shortly afterward.
Thus August 17 is a documented public-announcement milestone in the design history of the 2005 nickels.
The unusually large number reflects the complexity of the 2005 program.
The Mint was not choosing a single new image.
It needed a new obverse portrait of Thomas Jefferson and two different reverse designs.
Artists explored numerous ways to represent Jefferson, the American West, Native history, wildlife, exploration, and the Pacific destination of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
The Westward Journey Nickel Series
The 2004 and 2005 nickels formed the Westward Journey Nickel Series.
The program commemorated the bicentennials of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition.
For nearly seven decades, the Jefferson nickel had changed very little.
Suddenly, one of America's most familiar coins became a canvas for a sequence of new designs.
Felix Schlag's Jefferson nickel debuted in 1938.
The obverse showed a left-facing portrait of Thomas Jefferson.
The reverse depicted Monticello, Jefferson's Virginia home.
Although details were modified over the years, the basic pairing remained recognizable for generations.
That stability made the Westward Journey changes especially noticeable.
The historical foundation of the series begins in 1803.
The United States purchased a vast territory from France, dramatically expanding the nation's claimed land area.
President Thomas Jefferson then supported an expedition to explore western lands and seek a practical route across the continent.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the Corps of Discovery.
The expedition departed in 1804 and reached the Pacific coast in 1805.
Its members mapped routes, documented plants and animals, established diplomatic and trading contacts with Native nations, and gathered geographic information.
The journey became one of the most famous episodes of American exploration.
Its bicentennial provided the narrative framework for the nickel redesign.
The first Westward Journey reverse appeared in 2004.
It adapted the Indian Peace Medal imagery associated with Jefferson's administration.
The design featured clasped hands beneath a crossed pipe and tomahawk.
Such medals were used in diplomacy with Native leaders, though their historical meaning is inseparable from the expansionist policies that followed.
The second 2004 reverse depicted the keelboat used by the Corps of Discovery.
The vessel was central to the expedition's early travel up the Missouri River.
Figures representing Lewis and Clark appear on deck.
Together, the two 2004 reverses introduced the journey before the 2005 coins carried the story farther west.
2005 Would Change the Obverse Too
The 2005 program was more radical.
Not only would the reverse change twice, but Jefferson himself would receive a new portrait.
The traditional Schlag image was replaced by a dramatically different close-up.
For the first time in the denomination's history, Jefferson would face toward the viewer rather than appear in conventional profile.
The 2005 obverse was designed by Joe Fitzgerald through the Mint's Artistic Infusion Program.
The portrait was based on an 1800 image of Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale.
Fitzgerald's composition brought Jefferson's face close to the viewer and used Jefferson's own handwriting for the word Liberty.
The result was unlike any previous circulating Jefferson nickel.
United States Mint Sculptor-Engraver Don Everhart sculpted the obverse.
Everhart would become one of the most recognizable modern Mint artists, contributing to numerous coins and medals.
His work translated Fitzgerald's concept into relief suitable for mass production.
The portrait had to retain character while surviving billions of high-speed strikes.
The three-quarter or near-frontal presentation was historically significant.
American circulating coin portraits traditionally favored profile views.
A forward-facing image creates a more immediate psychological connection with the viewer.
Jefferson appears less like a distant bust and more like a person occupying the coin's field.
The word Liberty on the 2005 obverse was based on Jefferson's handwriting.
This device made the inscription personal.
Instead of using only standardized lettering, the design incorporated a visual trace of the historical figure himself.
The idea would continue on the redesigned Jefferson obverse introduced in 2006.
The first 2005 reverse featured an American bison.
The image recalled the buffalo nickel of 1913–1938 while remaining a distinct modern design.
Jamie Franki of the Artistic Infusion Program designed the reverse.
Norman E. Nemeth of the United States Mint sculpted it.
A Return of the Buffalo
The bison carried enormous symbolic weight.
Millions once roamed North America.
They were central to the lives and economies of many Plains Indigenous nations.
By the late nineteenth century, commercial slaughter and federal policy had brought the species close to destruction.
Its return to the nickel inevitably evoked both western mythology and environmental history.
James Earle Fraser's Buffalo nickel remains one of the most admired American coin designs.
Collectors immediately recognized the historical echo when a bison returned to the denomination in 2005.
The Westward Journey coin was not a reproduction.
But the subject linked two very different eras of nickel design.
The second 2005 reverse depicted the Pacific coastline.
It carried the inscription OCEAN IN VIEW! O! THE JOY!
The words were inspired by an entry in William Clark's journal as the expedition approached the Pacific.
Joe Fitzgerald designed the reverse, and Donna Weaver sculpted it.
The phrase has become closely associated with the expedition's arrival at the Pacific.
Historical interpretation requires some care because the Corps had not literally reached the open ocean at the exact moment associated with Clark's famous expression.
They were approaching the Pacific environment and the Columbia River estuary.
The coin uses the phrase as a symbolic climax to the westward journey.
The two 2005 reverses form a simple narrative sequence.
The bison evokes the interior West crossed by the expedition.
The Pacific scene represents the destination.
When combined with the 2004 Peace Medal and Keelboat designs, the four reverses create a miniature visual story told across two years of circulating nickels.
Rejected artwork can reveal as much as the winning design.
It shows what artists and officials considered possible.
Alternative portraits reveal different ways Jefferson might have appeared.
Unused reverses reveal competing interpretations of the expedition and American West.
The 144-design exhibition therefore documented decision-making, not merely decoration.
A modern U.S. coin design passes through numerous stages.
Artists submit concepts.
Mint officials review them.
The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee and Commission of Fine Arts may provide recommendations.
Historical accuracy and legal inscriptions must be considered.
Ultimately, Treasury officials approve the designs.
The Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee
The CCAC advises the Secretary of the Treasury on themes and designs for U.S. coins and medals.
Its meetings often provide a public window into aesthetic debate.
Members discuss symbolism, composition, lettering, historical appropriateness, and whether a design will work effectively in relief.
The 2005 nickel process belonged to this broader system of review.
The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts also reviews many federal coin and medal designs.
Its involvement reflects the fact that coinage is public art.
A circulating coin may be manufactured by the billions.
Few works of sculpture are reproduced on such a massive scale.
A drawing that looks excellent on paper may fail as a coin.
Fine lines can disappear.
Deep relief can create striking problems.
Lettering may crowd the field.
High points can wear quickly.
Successful coin design requires artistic imagination constrained by industrial reality.
The Westward Journey era coincided with the growing influence of the Mint's Artistic Infusion Program.
The program brought outside professional artists into the federal design process.
Joe Fitzgerald and Jamie Franki were among the artists whose concepts reached circulating coinage.
The broader pool helped diversify modern Mint design.
The Pittsburgh exhibition made the scale of that creative funnel visible.
Dozens upon dozens of concepts were considered.
Only one obverse and two reverses became 2005 circulating nickels.
Every coin in a pocket therefore represented a chain of choices among alternatives the public rarely sees.
For serious numismatists, seeing all 144 candidates together was more than an art show.
It offered insight into how a modern coin type develops.
Collectors could compare rejected concepts directly with the selected designs.
They could decide whether Treasury made the right choices.
Once a coin enters circulation, the selected artwork quickly begins to feel inevitable.
It is difficult to imagine the coin looking any other way.
Candidate-design exhibitions break that illusion.
They remind us that every familiar coin could have been different.
The 2005 nickel was one outcome among 144 visual possibilities.
The Bison Nickel's Popular Appeal
When the American Bison nickel entered circulation in 2005, it generated considerable public attention.
The return of a buffalo to the five-cent piece was immediately recognizable even to casual collectors.
Roll searching and bank purchases became popular.
The coin helped demonstrate that changing circulating designs could stimulate interest far beyond traditional numismatics.
The second 2005 issue carried the narrative to its conclusion.
Instead of another animal or portrait, the reverse opened onto a landscape.
The horizon and water create an unusually expansive feeling on a small coin.
After a symbolic journey across the continent, the series reaches the Pacific.
The Westward Journey reverses were temporary.
In 2006, Monticello returned to the nickel.
But Jefferson received another new obverse portrait, this time designed by Jamie Franki.
That forward-facing portrait remains on the denomination today.
The temporary series therefore permanently changed the Jefferson nickel's obverse tradition.
The program demonstrated how a familiar denomination could become a short-form historical series without abandoning its identity.
Americans still recognized the nickel.
Yet each new reverse encouraged them to look again.
This model followed the success of the State Quarters and anticipated later rotating programs.
The Westward Journey series introduced millions of people to themes they might otherwise encounter only in textbooks or museums.
The Louisiana Purchase, Indian Peace Medals, keelboats, bison, Lewis and Clark, and the Pacific coast all entered everyday commerce.
That reach is one of circulating coinage's unique educational strengths.
Modern historical interpretation also recognizes that westward expansion was not an uncomplicated national triumph.
The lands explored by Lewis and Clark were already inhabited by Native nations with their own governments, economies, and histories.
Expansion brought displacement, broken treaties, warfare, and profound cultural loss.
The coins can therefore serve as starting points for deeper historical discussion rather than simple celebration.
Peace Medals and Power
The 2004 Peace Medal reverse illustrates that complexity particularly well.
The clasped hands suggest diplomacy.
Yet federal Indian peace medals were also instruments of American political expansion.
They represented claims of authority and attempts to reshape diplomatic relationships.
A small nickel can open a large historical question.
The 2005 bison carries similar layers.
To many Americans it symbolizes the West and wilderness.
For Plains peoples, bison were essential to foodways, trade, spirituality, and community life.
The near-destruction of the herds cannot be separated from the history of U.S. expansion.
The image is therefore more historically complex than nostalgia alone suggests.
The candidate designs were attempts to decide which fragments of this enormous history could fit on a five-cent coin.
That is why the Pittsburgh exhibition matters.
It exposed the act of historical selection.
Artists and officials were choosing which symbols Americans would encounter billions of times.
Coins occupy a strange place in art history.
They are tiny sculptures manufactured on an industrial scale.
People handle them without necessarily looking at them.
Yet a successful design can survive for generations and become part of national visual culture.
The 144 candidates were proposals for that extraordinarily public canvas.
August 17, 2004 did not mark the release of a new nickel.
It marked something rarer: the United States Mint invited collectors to see how a new nickel was being created.
By announcing the display of all 144 candidate designs, the Mint preserved a snapshot of the creative process behind the 2005 Westward Journey issues.
The eventual winners would become familiar—the forward-facing Jefferson, the American bison, and the Pacific landscape inscribed OCEAN IN VIEW! O! THE JOY!
But in Pittsburgh, collectors could see that those designs were not inevitable.
They were selected from a vast field of alternatives.
For anyone interested in how American coinage evolves, that glimpse behind the finished coin is history in its own right.
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