SEPTEMBER 26
2005•Three Denominations End / 25-Year Design Law
2005•Kansas First Day Coin Cover
The U.S. Mint Unveils the Final Westward Journey Nickel
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On September 26, 2005, the United States Mint unveiled the design that would complete the Westward Journey Nickel Series: the 2006 “Return to Monticello” five-cent coin. The new nickel restored Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello to the reverse after a two-year sequence of changing designs commemorating the bicentennials of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition.
But the coin was not simply a return to the old Jefferson nickel.
The Mint paired a newly restored, more detailed version of Felix Schlag’s Monticello with a completely new forward-facing portrait of Thomas Jefferson by artist Jamie Franki. The result marked both an ending and a beginning: it closed the Westward Journey program while establishing the basic Jefferson nickel design still familiar today.
The Jefferson Nickel Before Westward Journey
Thomas Jefferson first appeared on the five-cent coin in 1938.
The Mint had held a public competition to replace the Buffalo nickel, whose design had been used since 1913. German-born sculptor Felix Schlag won with a profile portrait of Jefferson on the obverse and Jefferson’s Virginia home, Monticello, on the reverse.
Although Mint officials required modifications to Schlag’s winning design before production, the basic Jefferson-and-Monticello pairing remained remarkably stable for more than six decades.
Then Congress authorized a temporary transformation.
The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 nearly doubled the territory of the United States.
President Thomas Jefferson’s administration acquired the vast region from France, and Jefferson soon sent Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore lands stretching toward the Pacific.
Two hundred years later, the United States prepared to commemorate those events.
The American 5-Cent Coin Design Continuity Act of 2003 authorized the Treasury to temporarily replace Monticello with designs honoring the bicentennials of the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition.
The Westward Journey Nickel Series Begins
The first two Westward Journey nickels appeared in 2004.
The Peace Medal reverse adapted the Indian Peace Medal associated with Jefferson’s presidency and the Lewis and Clark expedition.
The Keelboat reverse depicted the vessel used by the expedition during an important portion of its journey.
Jefferson’s familiar profile remained on the obverse in 2004, but even that would change the following year.
For 2005, the Mint introduced a new obverse portrait of Jefferson based on a marble bust by French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon.
The word LIBERTY appeared in Jefferson’s own handwriting.
The 2005 reverses continued the expedition story.
One depicted an American bison, recalling the wildlife and landscapes encountered in the West.
The other showed a Pacific coastline with the inscription OCEAN IN VIEW! O! THE JOY!, language associated with William Clark’s journal.
By the end of 2005, four special reverse designs had appeared in only two years.
The Westward Journey series was never intended to permanently remove Monticello.
The authorizing legislation specifically protected the long-term Jefferson-Monticello identity of the five-cent coin.
After the temporary bicentennial designs, the reverse was required to return to an image of Monticello beginning in 2006.
The law also required Jefferson to remain on the obverse.
The Mint therefore faced an interesting design problem: how could it return to tradition without simply turning the clock back to 1938?
The 2006 nickel answered that question in two different ways.
On the reverse, the Mint restored Felix Schlag’s classic Monticello design with improved detail.
On the obverse, it introduced a dramatically different Jefferson portrait.
The coin therefore looked unmistakably like a Jefferson nickel while also announcing that the series had entered a new era.
September 26, 2005
The United States Mint publicly unveiled the 2006 nickel design on September 26, 2005.
The announcement emphasized that the coin would be the final design in the Westward Journey Nickel Series.
Mint officials presented the new Jefferson portrait and the restored Monticello reverse months before the coin entered circulation.
The date is therefore an unveiling milestone, not a production or circulation-release date.
The new obverse was designed by Jamie Franki of the United States Mint Artistic Infusion Program.
Instead of showing Jefferson in a conventional profile, Franki depicted him facing forward.
The Mint described the portrait as being based on an 1800 Rembrandt Peale painting of Jefferson.
The result was unusually direct.
Jefferson seems to look outward from the coin rather than across it.
The Mint highlighted the portrait’s unusual orientation.
For generations, presidential portraits on regular United States circulating coins had generally been presented in profile.
Franki’s Jefferson broke that convention with a frontal or nearly frontal presentation.
It gave the small five-cent coin a contemporary visual character while retaining a historical source image.
The 2006 obverse retained an innovation introduced during the Westward Journey series.
The word LIBERTY appears in Jefferson’s own handwriting.
The date follows nearby, while IN GOD WE TRUST appears on the opposite side.
This use of handwriting gives the design a personal connection to Jefferson that a standard engraved typeface could not provide.
It also links the permanent 2006 obverse to the temporary 2005 designs that preceded it.
Donna Weaver Sculpted the Portrait
Franki created the artistic design, while United States Mint sculptor-engraver Donna Weaver sculpted it for coinage.
This distinction between designer and sculptor became increasingly visible in modern Mint credits.
The Artistic Infusion Program brought outside artists into the federal coin-design process, while Mint sculptors translated approved concepts into forms suitable for dies and striking.
The 2006 Jefferson nickel is a prominent example of that collaboration.
The reverse returned to Felix Schlag’s Monticello.
Schlag’s original 1938 concept had become one of the longest-running architectural images on American circulating coinage.
Monticello was not merely a generic building. Jefferson designed and repeatedly modified the house, making it an expression of his interests in architecture, science, agriculture, and classical design.
Restoring it after the Westward Journey series reconnected the nickel with nearly seven decades of visual history.
The Mint did not simply reuse the worn-down working version of the design unchanged.
It restored details based more closely on Schlag’s original work.
The architectural lines became sharper and the overall rendering more faithful to the original concept.
The word MONTICELLO appears beneath the building, along with FIVE CENTS and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
E PLURIBUS UNUM appears above.
One subtle but historically important change was the appearance of Felix Schlag’s initials on the reverse.
Schlag had won the 1938 design competition, but his initials were not added to the Jefferson nickel until 1966.
The restored 2006 reverse continued to recognize him.
Thus a design created before World War II survived into the twenty-first century while being digitally and artistically refreshed for modern production.
The Westward Journey Story Comes Full Circle
The series had begun with Jefferson’s expansionist vision and the Lewis and Clark expedition.
Its designs moved symbolically westward: peace medal, keelboat, bison, Pacific Ocean.
Then the final coin returned home.
Monticello reappeared on the reverse.
The narrative structure was unusually coherent for circulating coinage. Rather than a collection of unrelated commemorative images, the nickels told a two-year story and then deliberately restored the traditional national design.
Most modern U.S. commemorative coins are collector products sold at premiums.
The Westward Journey series was different.
Its designs appeared on ordinary five-cent pieces intended to circulate through everyday commerce.
That gave the bicentennial story an enormous audience.
Millions of Americans who never purchased a commemorative silver dollar or proof set encountered Lewis and Clark themes simply by receiving change.
Changing circulating designs can encourage casual collecting.
People who might ignore a familiar coin often begin checking their change when several designs appear in succession.
The State Quarters program had already demonstrated the enormous public interest that changing reverses could generate.
The Westward Journey nickels extended that idea to another denomination.
With two reverses in 2004 and two in 2005, collectors could assemble a small, inexpensive set directly from circulation.
The Westward Journey nickels were especially approachable because the basic circulation set was small. A collector could seek the four temporary reverses from pocket change without committing to a decade-long program. Philadelphia and Denver mint marks added another layer for anyone who wanted a more complete date-and-mint collection.
That compactness gave the series educational value as well. The coins could introduce a new collector to changing designs, mint marks, historical themes, and the difference between temporary commemorative imagery and a continuing regular issue.
When the 2006 design appeared, it provided a natural final chapter rather than leaving the temporary sequence open-ended.
Why the Return to Monticello Was More Than Nostalgia
Restoring Monticello satisfied Congress, but the Mint’s treatment also demonstrated how a long-running design can be renewed without abandoning its identity. The building remained immediately recognizable, yet the refreshed detail made the reverse look less like a simple reissue of an old die.
That balance mattered because the Jefferson nickel already had generations of familiarity behind it. A completely unrelated permanent reverse would have broken that continuity. An untouched restoration, on the other hand, would have ignored the opportunity created by two years of design experimentation.
The 2006 coin split the difference: a new Jefferson on the front, a renewed classic on the back.
The unveiled design became reality the following year.
The new Jefferson nickel entered circulation in 2006, completing the transition from the temporary bicentennial program to a permanent design.
Unlike the four Westward Journey reverses, the Return to Monticello design was not intended as a one-year commemorative.
It became the continuing nickel.
The importance of the September 26 unveiling becomes clearer with time.
The basic 2006 design did not disappear after a short run.
The forward-facing Jefferson and restored Monticello established the modern identity of the five-cent coin.
That means an announcement originally framed as the conclusion of the Westward Journey series also introduced a design with a much longer life.
The 2006 nickel combines historical layers in an unusual way.
Jefferson himself lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The obverse portrait draws from Rembrandt Peale’s 1800 painting.
The reverse comes from Felix Schlag’s 1938 nickel design.
Jamie Franki’s modern interpretation and Donna Weaver’s sculpting brought the obverse into the twenty-first century.
The result is not simply an old coin or a new coin. It is a composition built across more than two hundred years of American visual history.
From Bicentennial Experiment to Permanent Coinage
The most lasting consequence of the Westward Journey program may be that its temporary redesign period gave the Mint room to rethink the permanent nickel. The four special reverses are the obvious commemorative pieces, but the 2006 obverse survived them all.
That makes September 26, 2005 an unusual kind of endpoint. The Mint was unveiling the final design associated with a short commemorative series, yet it was simultaneously revealing the face of a regular circulating coin that would endure far beyond the bicentennial celebration.
For collectors, the dividing line is clear: 2004 and 2005 tell the expedition story through rotating reverses; 2006 returns the denomination to Monticello while preserving the design experimentation on Jefferson’s side of the coin.
September 26, 2005 marks the public unveiling of the design that closed the Westward Journey Nickel Series and established the modern Jefferson nickel.
After two years of commemorating the Louisiana Purchase and Lewis and Clark expedition with changing reverses, Monticello returned.
But the Mint did not simply restore the pre-2004 coin.
Jamie Franki’s forward-facing Jefferson gave the obverse an entirely new personality, while a sharpened restoration of Felix Schlag’s Monticello preserved the denomination’s traditional connection to Jefferson’s Virginia home.
The Westward Journey series had temporarily sent the nickel across the continent.
On September 26, the Mint revealed the design that would bring it back to Monticello—and carry the Jefferson nickel forward into a new era.
ALSO ON THIS DAY
2005 — Kansas First Day Coin Cover — The Mint opened sales for the Kansas Official First Day Coin Cover featuring two Kansas State Quarters.