The nickel is the United States' five-cent coin. The person on the obverse (heads) of the nickel is Thomas Jefferson, our 3rd president. He's been on the nickel since 1938, although the current portrait dates to 2006.

Nickel's name comes from the Saxon term 'Kupfernickel' or Devils' Copper. 15th century miners in Germany found a brown-red ore which they believed to contain copper. They called it Kupfernickel or Devils' Copper because they couldn't recover copper from it. Coins in the USA first used nickel alloyed with copper in 1857 ...