We do not often talk about coins from South Africa unless you are referring to their most famous one, the Krugerrand. Whether gold in its beginning or silver as it was created just a few years ago marking the first time, not much else is talked about numismatically speaking. However, today in our blog series following along with Whitman Publishing’s 100 Greatest Modern World Coins by Charles Morgan and Hubert Walker, we are revisiting a coin from the country’s history that has quite the story behind it.
#39 - South Africa 1902 Veld Pond
The 1902 veld pond, which means “field pound” from the Dutch, is one of South Africa’s most famous coins due to the coin’s metal composition and the very fact that there was a three-decade long battle for territory control to which the metal came from. The struggle was between the descendants of the territory’s first European settlers (Dutch) and the more dominant British army.
The British Empire was looking to expand, and on paper, they had every advantage to move forward doing so against the Boers. The Boer population was mostly made up of frontiersman and farmers that had already escaped the rule of the Dutch East India Company by heading to South Africa. Once there, they created to independent states: the Orange Free State and the South African Republic. However, the landlocked territories found trade and government difficult, leaving the Boers to face bankruptcy until they uncovered diamonds and gold in the 1870s. Their change in wealth did not escape the careful watch of the British and they decided that they wanted to take part. The Boers had no choice but to accept the takeover as they were threatened by the Zulu uprisings.
As the Boers continued to struggle against the British, running out of money and provisions to keep going, they were faced with the very real idea that they were losing as trade was only possible with those who agreed with them. As their biggest problem was money, South Africa’s dormant but oldest gold mine was their answer. Under the control of General Benjamin Viljoen at Pilgrim’s Rest, the mine came back to life in 1901, but Viljoen would not oversee the mintage of coinage. He was captured on January 25, 1902. His replacement, General Christiaan Hendrick Muller, was able to get permission to produce coins from the gold that was uncovered from the mines, which was approximately US$73,200 worth.
The coins that were struck as a result of the gold were harsh and bear the bare minimum of inscriptions, including ZAR 1902 on the obverse and EEN POND on the reverse. However, despite using boorish tools and gold that had been in its original eroded form, the coins had a higher value over the British sovereign. The total mintage of the coin is up for debate with some agreeing upon 986. Others believe, including a scholar from South Africa, that the actual number is around 530. In both cases, those numbers are conditional as just a small fraction of either lot is actually believed to have survived.
The finest example to have ever been purchased was at an auction in 2008 graded by NGC in MS66 and was sold for $92,000.