MARCH 22
2006•2006 U.S. Mint Proof Set
2018•Mint Highlights Breast Cancer Commemorative Launch
The U.S. Mint Releases the 2006 Proof Set
On March 22, 2006, the United States Mint released its annual 10-coin Proof Set, a compact snapshot of American circulating coinage at a moment of unusually visible change. The $22.95 set included the Lincoln cent, the newly redesigned “Return to Monticello” Jefferson nickel, Roosevelt dime, Kennedy half dollar, Sacagawea Golden Dollar, and five State Quarters honoring Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota and South Dakota. Every coin was struck at San Francisco with the S mintmark using specially prepared dies and proof-production methods. The set is particularly notable for preserving the first proof version of the forward-facing Jefferson portrait that remains the foundation of the nickel’s modern design.
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March 22, 2006
At noon Eastern Time, the United States Mint opened sales for the 2006 United States Mint Proof Set.
The issue price was $22.95.
Inside were ten proof coins representing every circulating denomination and design scheduled for the year.
The Mint divided the set into two sealed cases.
One contained five regular-denomination coins:
- Lincoln cent;
- Return to Monticello Jefferson nickel;
- Roosevelt dime;
- Kennedy half dollar;
- Sacagawea Golden Dollar.
The second case contained the five 2006 State Quarters:
- Nevada;
- Nebraska;
- Colorado;
- North Dakota;
- South Dakota.
The denominations are familiar.
The manufacturing process is not.
Proof coins are produced specifically for collectors.
They receive specialized preparation and striking intended to emphasize detail and surface contrast.
All ten coins were struck at the San Francisco Mint.
Each bears the S mintmark.
San Francisco had become the Mint's principal facility for modern proof coinage.
The Mint's 2006 release announcement explained that each proof coin was struck at least twice.
Multiple strikes help bring up fine details in the design.
The goal is not rapid mass production.
The goal is presentation quality.
Modern proofs are known for their cameo appearance.
The raised devices appear frosted.
The surrounding fields are bright and reflective.
The contrast can make a familiar circulating design look dramatically different.
The word proof describes a manufacturing method, not an automatic grade.
A proof coin can still acquire spots, haze, scratches or handling damage.
Collectors distinguish between how a coin was made and how well it has survived.
The Lincoln cent, Roosevelt dime and Kennedy half dollar were familiar designs.
The dollar was still the Sacagawea Golden Dollar.
The State Quarters Program was deep into its run.
But the nickel had just undergone one of the most significant redesign sequences in its history.
The Return to Monticello Nickel
The centerpiece of the 2006 Proof Set was the new Jefferson nickel.
The Mint called it the Return to Monticello nickel.
Its reverse restored Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home after two years of temporary Westward Journey designs.
The obverse was entirely new.
Instead of the long-familiar left-facing profile introduced in 1938, Jefferson now appeared in a dramatic forward-looking portrait.
It was a major visual break with more than six decades of nickel tradition.
Artist Jamie Franki designed the new obverse.
He based the portrait on an 1800 painting of Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale.
The year was historically appropriate: Jefferson was elected president in 1800.
United States Mint sculptor-engraver Donna Weaver translated Franki's design into coinage relief.
The result placed Jefferson's face unusually close to the viewer.
The Mint emphasized that the 2006 portrait was the first forward-facing presidential portrait on a circulating U.S. coin.
That made the nickel immediately distinctive.
Coin portraits are usually conservative.
Profile busts fit naturally into a round field and have centuries of precedent.
A forward-looking portrait feels more direct and modern.
The obverse also carries the word Liberty based on Jefferson's own handwriting.
This feature had appeared during the 2005 Westward Journey redesign and continued into the permanent 2006 obverse.
Handwritten lettering creates a different feeling from formal engraved typography.
It connects the inscription visually to the person portrayed.
Millions of nickels therefore carry a small facsimile of Jefferson's handwriting.
The 2006 proof nickel carries its date and S mintmark on the obverse.
The proof therefore combines the new portrait with the identifying mark of San Francisco collector production.
The reverse returned to Felix Schlag's Monticello, originally introduced with the Jefferson nickel in 1938.
But the 2006 version was not simply an untouched reuse of the old production hub.
The design was carefully restored.
Mint sculptor-engraver John Mercanti worked from Schlag's original design to restore architectural details that had weakened or disappeared through decades of technical modification.
Among the restored details were facets of Monticello's dome.
Balconies were reworked.
Details around doors and windows were strengthened.
The building became sharper and more architectural.
This is an important lesson in minting.
A design used for decades does not necessarily remain visually identical.
Die-making methods, hubs, production needs and technical modifications can gradually change details.
The 2006 reverse remained recognizably Schlag's Monticello.
Yet Mercanti's restoration changed what collectors could see.
It returned details closer to the artist's original conception.
The Jefferson Nickel Began in 1938
Felix Schlag won a national design competition for the new nickel.
Nearly 400 artists participated.
Schlag received a $1,000 award.
From 1913 through 1938, James Earle Fraser's Buffalo nickel had carried a Native American portrait and American bison.
The Jefferson nickel replaced one of the most recognizable American coin designs.
For generations, the building on the back of a nickel was one of the most familiar architectural images in American pockets.
Many people who had never visited Virginia recognized Monticello from coinage.
In 2004 and 2005, Congress authorized temporary nickel redesigns to commemorate the bicentennials of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Monticello stepped aside while the Westward Journey Nickel Series unfolded.
The first Westward Journey reverse used imagery based on the Jefferson Peace Medal carried during the Lewis and Clark expedition.
It connected the nickel directly to diplomacy and exploration.
The second reverse depicted the expedition's keelboat.
The vessel was central to the Corps of Discovery's early travel up the Missouri River.
In 2005, the nickel featured an American bison.
The animal represented wildlife encountered in the West and deliberately evoked the beloved Buffalo nickel tradition.
The year's second reverse showed the Pacific Ocean and commemorated the expedition's arrival near the western coast.
It completed the outward journey.
The Mint described the restored Monticello reverse as symbolizing both the expedition's return from its roughly 8,000-mile journey and the nickel's return to Jefferson's home.
Although the 2006 design became the new standard nickel format, the Mint also described it as the concluding coin of the Westward Journey Nickel Series.
It closed the temporary redesign experiment while establishing a permanent new obverse.
That combination is what makes 2006 special.
Monticello came back.
The old Jefferson portrait did not.
Circulating 2006 nickels had already begun entering commerce earlier in the year.
March 22 was not the first appearance of the design.
It was the release of the annual proof set containing its San Francisco proof version.
The 2006 Proof Set also contained the familiar Lincoln cent.
Victor David Brenner's portrait of Abraham Lincoln had appeared on the cent since 1909.
In 2006, the reverse still carried the Lincoln Memorial design introduced in 1959.
Collectors in 2006 did not yet hold the later Union Shield cent.
The Lincoln Memorial reverse would remain through 2008.
Four Bicentennial reverses followed in 2009, and the Union Shield arrived in 2010.
The Proof Set Freezes the Memorial Cent Era
That is one reason annual sets become more interesting with time.
What looked ordinary when issued can later represent a completed design period.
The set included the Roosevelt dime, a design introduced in 1946 after President Franklin D. Roosevelt's death.
John R. Sinnock's portrait remained on the obverse.
The reverse features a torch flanked by olive and oak branches.
The imagery symbolizes liberty, peace and strength.
By 2006 it was one of the longest-running unchanged circulating designs.
John F. Kennedy's portrait had appeared on the half dollar since 1964.
The coin was introduced with extraordinary speed after his assassination in November 1963.
The original 1964 Kennedy half was 90 percent silver.
From 1965 through 1970 it used a 40 percent silver composition.
By 2006, the standard proof half in the regular clad Proof Set used the modern copper-nickel clad composition.
The reverse adapts the Presidential Seal.
The heraldic eagle gives the half dollar a formal appearance distinct from the landscape-heavy State Quarters in the same set.
The 2006 set also contained the Sacagawea Golden Dollar.
The coin had debuted in 2000 as a new small-dollar design.
The Sacagawea dollar contains no gold.
Its distinctive golden color comes from its manganese-brass outer layers.
This is an important distinction for new collectors.
Sculptor Glenna Goodacre designed the obverse.
Sacagawea carries her infant son, Jean Baptiste.
The image connects directly to the Lewis and Clark story also commemorated by the nickel redesigns.
The 2006 Proof Set therefore contained two denominations with strong Lewis and Clark associations.
The nickel's Westward Journey program centered on the expedition.
Sacagawea was herself an essential member of the expedition.
Thomas D. Rogers Sr. designed the original soaring eagle reverse used on the Sacagawea dollar through 2008.
The Native American $1 Coin Program began changing the reverse annually in 2009.
Half of the 2006 Proof Set consisted of State Quarters.
The program was one of the most successful public coinage initiatives in U.S. history.
Beginning in 1999, the Mint released five state designs each year in the order the states joined the Union.
By 2006, the program had moved well into the western states.
Nevada was the first state honored in 2006 and the 36th coin in the State Quarters series.
The design depicts wild mustangs running across the landscape.
Mountains and sagebrush reinforce the western setting.
The inscription THE SILVER STATE references Nevada's famous mining history.
Silver Built Nevada's Numismatic Connection
The Comstock Lode transformed the region and helped create the economic justification for the Carson City Mint.
Nevada's quarter therefore connects naturally to American coinage history.
The Carson City Mint began coin production in 1870.
Its CC mintmark became one of the most beloved identifiers in American numismatics.
Morgan dollars from Carson City are especially famous.
Nebraska's quarter depicts Chimney Rock rising above a westward-moving covered wagon.
The landmark guided emigrants traveling the Oregon, California and Mormon trails.
Before GPS, highway signs or modern maps, major natural formations could serve as critical reference points.
Chimney Rock told travelers where they were in a long and dangerous journey west.
A wagon moving toward Chimney Rock compresses an enormous history of migration into a tiny scene.
It is exactly the kind of visual shorthand commemorative coinage often requires.
Colorado's quarter presents a mountainous landscape with evergreen trees and a banner reading COLORFUL COLORADO.
The design emphasizes the Rocky Mountains that define much of the state's visual identity.
Colorado is also home to the Denver Mint.
The D mintmark appears on billions of American circulating coins.
Denver began striking coins in 1906—the same year whose centennial was being reached when this Proof Set appeared.
The Denver Mint's first coinage occurred in 1906.
The 2006 Colorado State Quarter therefore arrived during the centennial year of coin production at the state's own federal mint.
North Dakota's quarter depicts two American bison against the rugged Badlands.
The design combines wildlife and landscape in a scene strongly associated with the northern Great Plains.
Only a year earlier, the American bison had appeared on the 2005 Jefferson nickel.
The animal has a long numismatic history, most famously on James Earle Fraser's Buffalo nickel of 1913–1938.
The bison represents wildlife, the Great Plains and the environmental history of western expansion.
Its repeated appearance on coins shows how strongly it functions as a national symbol.
South Dakota's quarter combines Mount Rushmore, wheat and a Chinese ring-necked pheasant.
The design mixes a monumental national landmark with agricultural and wildlife imagery.
The monument depicts George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
That creates a coin-within-a-coin kind of presidential connection: presidents carved into a mountain appear on the reverse while Washington remains on the quarter's obverse.
The monument was the subject of a 1991 U.S. commemorative coin program marking its golden anniversary.
The 2006 quarter brought the landmark into everyday circulating coinage.
Five States, Five Visual Strategies
Nevada uses horses and mining identity.
Nebraska uses a migration landmark.
Colorado uses mountains.
North Dakota uses wildlife and Badlands.
South Dakota uses a national monument, agriculture and wildlife.
Before the program, the quarter's reverse remained essentially stable for decades.
Now five new designs arrived every year.
The public became accustomed to checking pocket change for something new.
Children used maps and folders.
Families searched change.
Casual collectors tried to find examples from Philadelphia and Denver.
The program brought mintmarks and designs into millions of households.
The quarters found in circulation generally came from Philadelphia or Denver.
The proof quarters in the March 22 set came from San Francisco.
The S mintmark immediately identified their collector origin.
The standard 2006 Proof Set contained copper-nickel clad versions of the dime, quarters and half dollar.
The Mint separately offered a Silver Proof Set containing silver versions of those denominations.
This distinction matters in the secondary market.
A 2006 clad Proof Set and a 2006 Silver Proof Set may look similar in photographs.
The metal content is different.
The 2006 Silver Proof Set went on sale May 10.
Its dime, five quarters and half dollar were struck in 90 percent silver.
The cent, nickel and Golden Dollar retained their normal compositions.
Collectors could already buy a separate clad 2006 State Quarters Proof Set beginning January 5.
That product contained only the five quarters.
This date distinction is important for the calendar.
March 22 did not mark the first availability of proof versions of the five State Quarters.
It marked the release of the full 10-coin annual Proof Set.
One of the best ways to understand a Proof Set is to view it as a snapshot.
It freezes the year's circulating design lineup in collector-quality form.
The Lincoln Memorial cent is gone.
The Sacagawea eagle reverse is gone.
The State Quarters Program is complete.
The Kennedy half has undergone later design and composition developments in collector products.
Yet the forward-facing Jefferson portrait and restored Monticello remain central to the nickel.
When a Proof Set is new, many of its coins seem completely ordinary.
Twenty or fifty years later, the same set can reveal an entire vanished design environment.
They provide multiple denominations in one package.
A collector can compare size, edge, color, composition and design without assembling ten separate purchases.
The cent and nickel have plain edges.
The dime, quarter and half dollar have reeded edges.
The Golden Dollar has its own distinctive physical characteristics.
Even before studying artwork, the denominations reveal different design traditions.
Why Reeded Edges Exist
Historically, reeding helped reveal clipping from precious-metal coins.
Modern clad coins no longer need reeding for that original purpose, but the feature survives as part of denomination identity and coinage tradition.
Five-cent nickels have long used a plain edge.
The 2006 redesign changed the faces of the coin without altering that basic physical characteristic.
The copper-plated zinc cent appears reddish.
The nickel has a gray-white copper-nickel appearance.
The clad dime, quarters and half dollar appear silver-colored.
The manganese-brass dollar appears golden.
This surprises some beginning collectors.
The standard 2006 Proof Set is a clad set.
Silver color is not proof of silver content.
Collectors should identify the exact Mint product and coin specifications.
Appearance alone can be misleading.
The 2006 Proof Set was sold in sealed presentation cases and accompanied by Mint packaging.
Collectors often prefer complete original sets because the packaging documents how the coins were issued.
A loose 2006-S proof nickel is still the same coin.
But a complete original Proof Set preserves the relationship among all ten coins.
It remains the annual product the Mint actually sold on March 22.
Dealers and collectors sometimes remove individual coins for albums, grading submissions or sale.
Over time, intact sets and individual certified coins can develop separate collector markets.
Modern proofs were made to high standards.
That means collectors pursuing top third-party grades may focus on tiny differences invisible to casual observers.
A small spot or contact mark can separate grades and prices.
A Proof 69 and Proof 70 example tell the same design story.
For historical collecting, the importance lies in the issue itself rather than only the numerical grade.
Among the ten coins, it represents the clearest permanent change to a major circulating denomination.
The State Quarters were intentionally temporary.
The nickel established a new long-term Jefferson portrait and restored Monticello reverse.
The Westward Journey Nickel Series ended.
The modern Jefferson nickel era began.
The same coin accomplished both.
The Proof Set's Sacagawea dollar evokes the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Jefferson commissioned that expedition.
The nickel's entire temporary redesign program had commemorated the same history.
Westward exploration appears through the nickel.
Sacagawea appears on the dollar.
Nebraska's quarter depicts a westward wagon.
Western landscapes dominate several State Quarters.
Nevada.
Nebraska.
Colorado.
North Dakota.
South Dakota.
The year's quarter lineup alone made western geography unusually prominent.
From Lewis and Clark to the State Quarters
The Proof Set unintentionally becomes a small visual history of American expansion and regional identity.
That does not mean the stories are simple or without difficult consequences.
Coins often present celebratory national narratives in compressed form.
Westward expansion involved Native nations, displacement, warfare, treaty violations and profound environmental change.
A covered wagon or mountain landscape cannot communicate the entire history.
Her presence on the dollar reminds collectors that the Lewis and Clark expedition depended on Indigenous knowledge and assistance.
Even so, one portrait cannot represent the full complexity of Native history.
Because so many designs sit together, a collector can ask questions that a single coin may not inspire.
Who appears on American money?
Which landscapes are selected?
Which histories are celebrated?
How does national symbolism change?
It is a curated sample of what the United States chose to put on its circulating coinage in one year.
At issue, the set cost far more than its $1.91 total face value.
Collectors were paying for proof manufacture, presentation, limited collector distribution and the completeness of the annual set.
No sensible purchaser bought the set to spend the coins.
The legal denominations established their status as U.S. coinage.
The product value came from collectibility.
A proof coin can be worth more than face value even without precious metal.
Manufacturing method, scarcity, demand and historical interest can all create numismatic value.
March 22, 2006 was not the first day any 2006 coin existed.
Several designs had already entered circulation or appeared in other collector products.
The date matters because it is the documented release of the complete annual U.S. Mint Proof Set.
Lincoln.
Jefferson.
Roosevelt.
Kennedy.
Sacagawea.
Washington.
Monticello.
Mustangs.
Chimney Rock.
The Rockies.
Bison.
Mount Rushmore.
An enormous amount of American history fits inside two small plastic cases.
On March 22, 2006, the United States Mint released its 10-coin annual Proof Set for $22.95. Struck at San Francisco with the S mintmark, the set preserved the year's complete circulating-design lineup in collector-quality proof form. Its defining coin was the new Return to Monticello nickel: Jamie Franki's forward-looking Thomas Jefferson replaced the old profile, while John Mercanti restored details to Felix Schlag's classic Monticello reverse. Alongside it were five State Quarters honoring Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota and South Dakota, making the 2006 Proof Set both a product of the State Quarters phenomenon and a permanent milestone in the history of the Jefferson nickel.
Own a Piece of the History
Interested in this classic American coin? Shop handcrafted silver State Quarter coin rings from CoinCrafters, made from authentic coinage and finished by hand.
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