As part of a drive to beautify our nation’s coinage, President Taft commissioned artist James Earle Fraser to redesign the 5-cent piece. The result was the Indian Head or “Buffalo” nickel—an American icon that became one of the most widely collected coins of the 20th century. The new nickel embodied the spirit of the Old West, with an obverse design featuring an authentic composite portrait of three Native American subjects and an American Bison on the reverse. Unlike most prior U.S. coins that possessed abundant and smooth background fields, the Buffalo nickel was boldly filled with design elements stretching to all edges and set on an irregular background in bas-relief. Production continued until the design was replaced by the Jefferson nickel in 1938. Today, the Buffalo nickel is vanishingly scarce in circulation but lives on strongly in the hearts and cabinets of coin collectors and enthusiasts.
