Taking a play out of fashion industry's notebook, the U.S. Mint continues its effort to sex up its image by introducing not one but TWO new nickels next year, one for the spring, the other for fall. The nickels will still have Thomas Jefferson's profile, but the backs are new, both with events from Jefferson's presidency. The Spring Nickel celebrates the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the United States as well as displaced Native Americans, thus one Native American hand and one military hand. Fall Nickel celebrates Lewis and Clark's journey through the Pacific Northwest; the image on the nickel is of Lewis's Keelboat. The Mint has an explanation of the Keelboat, but it basically looks like a boat you use when you're trying to explore the Pacific Northwest in the early 1800s.
The AP reports Monticello will return to the back of the nickel in 2006, which is reassuring to Gothamist because it just proves our theory of that everything repeats itself.
