A BRIEFHISTORY OF COINS IN SOUTH AFRICA
1874 – President T.F. Burgers (Burger Ponde)
In 1874, M. W. Pretorius was succeeded as President of the Z.A.R. by T. F. Burgers, an enlightened Cape man with a clerical qualification. In this imposing, liberal person, the Z.A.R. burghers saw a man of learning, the very opposite of the "uneducated" farmer, M. W. Pretorius, who had so easily allowed himself to be manoeuvred into losing the diamond fields. Burgers would be the man, they thought, who would bring order into the chaotic affairs of the Republic. History would judge him - perhaps unfairly, as a misunderstood statesman - as a failure, but, in numismatics, his name lives on in that dream of any coin collector: the Burgerspond (Burgers pound or staatsponden), and also in the various patterns that bear his name.
Burgers wants an own monetary system for the Transvaal
When Burgers succeeded in ridding the Z.A.R. of its worthless paper money in 1872, it soon became evident that the President had other plans with regard to the financial burdens of the Republic. National pride and an own coinage system, to his mind, went hand in hand. Matthy Esterhuysen tells the story in “Ons Gelderfenis” of a parishioner called Potgieter who followed President (then "Dominee") Burgers to the Transvaal. Potgieter, who came from Hanover in the Cape, wanted to seek his fortune on the goldfields of the Eastern Transvaal and went to Pilgrim's Rest. "After months of disappointment, Potgieter gave up and packed his belongings to go and settle in Pretoria. Before he left, with his possessions and his family on the ox-wagon, he wandered off to take a last look of farewell at his claim, where he had camped on the goldfields. For a last few moments he sat down on a cracked rock. Lost in thought, he scratched a trickle of sand from the crevice. . . To his astonishment and jubilation, he discovered two bits of gold ore, which he named after the two daughters of President Burgers." The two pieces of gold-bearing ore, called Emma and Adelina, together weighed 1,021 kg. Burgers purchased them when he visited the goldfields in 1874. (Gold had not yet been discovered on the Witwatersrand.)
Burgers makes a serious mistake
Burgers purchased another 8,505 kg (300 ounces) of alluvial gold at £3-10/- an ounce and sent 10,10 kg of gold, his portrait and sketches of the coat of arms of the Z.A.R. to J.J. Pratt, the Republic's Consul-General in London, to arrange for the minting of gold staatsponden with the same intrinsic value as the British sovereign. It later appeared that Burgers had not obtained the approval of the Volksraad for this step. He had been in a hurry; it was already 9 February 1874 and he had wanted the pounds for the Volksraad's session in May that year.
The Burgerspond (staatsponden)
On 13 April, Pratt acknowledged receipt of Burgers' letter. The gold had not yet arrived (it reached London only on 15 May). The portrait, badly wrapped, had suffered some damage in transit. As luck would have it, Burgers' wife was on holiday in England at the time and had two portraits of her husband with her. She was thus also able to advise Pratt on the appearance of the President's wax model.
The gold contained impurities, and first had to be melted down and refined. After this process, 235,625 oz. remained. The eventual alloy, 256,275 oz., was constituted according to the British standard. The cost involved was £1-19/8d. The alloy for the coins would consist of 11 parts (916 2/3) gold and one part (83 1/3) copper. The matrices and dies were made by L. C. Wyon, die-cutter of the Royal Mint, at a cost of £42. The south African gold coins were struck by the firm R. Heaton and Sons of Birmingham at 3d each. Pratt had tried to have the coins ready by 5 June - the date on which Mrs Burgers was to leave for South Africa. But he only received 695 pound coins on 25 July, and a further 142 in September (of which, with the approval of the President, he kept four), together with 40,3 oz. of gold scissel.
The "coarse beard" and the "fine beard" coins
The coinage of the 142 pounds was done with a second die, after the first had broken. On these the President's beard appeared much thicker or coarser, hence the distinction between "fyn baard" (fine beard) and "growwe baard" (coarse beard) pounds. The latter are rarer and are usually 60 to 70 per cent more expensive than the fine beard ones.
The cost of a Burgers pound
On two occasions, President Burgers made mention of the pound coins as "£1 000 in value". The value ofthe unused.gold scraps remaining was £156, which, together with the value of the coins, came to £993. The loss of £7 can be explained by the impurities in the gold ore. Pratt submitted an account for the total cost of gold coinage: £90-0/10d. This included the cutting of the dies (£42), the cost of minting (£20-12/5d) and for the rest mainly postage at 25,82d per pound. If the £7 lost in the refining process is included, the final cost amounts to only 27,83 pence, as compared with the asserted figure of 72 pence per pound. The cost of £1-6/- per pound, which is often mentioned, is apparently incorrect. It should also be borne in mind that the dies were re-usable.
The "vreemdsoortige discussie" in the Volksraad
And so President Burgers proudly presented fifty of the gold coins to the Volksraad in September of that year. His excitement and high hopes regarding this surprise must have turned to appalled dismay when the ensuing debates degenerated into a "taamlike vreemdsoortige discussie" (a rather strange discussion). The President was accused of unconstitutional action: without the knowledge of the Volksraad he had "had gold money struck at the expense of the government". And worse, he was accused of vanity and of un scriptural conduct in having his own likeness - a graven image! - impressed on the coins. Other members of the Volksraad feared that this affair of gold coins would harm the relationship of the Republic with the Cape Commercial Bank. But there were some who approved of and even praised the President's progressive action.
After a long and acrimonious debate, which must have been something of a trial for Burgers, the Burgerspond (the Z.A.R. was a Republic, and so the coins were not called sovereigns) were approved as legal tender. The members of the Volksraad were paid for the first day's session "tot een voortdurend gedenkteken" - as a lasting memento - with one Burgers pound, which they could also buy at a pound each. For the public, the price was £2. The heads of friendly states received a pound each; how many and who the recipients were, is not known. And when the consternation subsided, the Volksraad presented Burgers with a pound too, to express its appreciation for the "in-omloop brengen van een inlandschen munt" - the bringing into circulation of an indigenous gold coin.
The Volksraad forbids further coinage and smaller denominations
When Burgers introduced the pound to the Volksraad, he mentioned, inter alia, that the coinage of smaller denominations was envisaged. The Volksraad voted against this, prohibiting not only the coinage of more pounds, but also of smaller denominations, so nothing came of it. It is also not clear if the patterns of the Berlin mint (today very rare and highly sought after) were an official submission or simply an attempt to "sell" the idea to the Volksraad. We know of designs for the £5 or 5/ - pieces, for the £2 or half-crown, for the £1 and the 2- and 1 penny pieces. Some of these had a milled or riffled edge, while others had plain edges.
Did Burgers intend establishing a state mint?
It is alleged - even generally accepted (South African Mints, E. H. D. Arndt) that Burgers not only envisaged a state mint for the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, but that he went so far as to order the necessary equipment at his own expense. Due, however, to lack of money and the approval of the Volksraad, the equipment was left lying to rust in Lourenso Marques (Maputo) along with other railway material ordered.
The fact remains that the government had appointed J. Perrin, a Swiss trained as a mint expert in the Swiss mint, as assayer in 1874. When the President visited the gold fields at Lydenburg in that year, Perrin presented him with a memorandum in which the advantages of a mint were set out and drawings of the proposed mint building and equipment were contained. Was Burgers reacting to this when he had his state pounds struck? It is significant that the first letter of the impulsive Burgers to Pratt about the gold coins, was written from Pilgrim's Rest. In view of Burgers' progressive but hasty nature, it is not at all unlikely that he did indeed think of establishing a mint, though historians have not been able to prove it. The Burgers patterns further deepen the mystery.
Burgerspounds and his specimen coins have become highly prised items.
Z.A.R. Coinage1892-1902 (President Paul Kruger)
The discovery of Gold in 1883 at Barberton, and 1886 on the Witwatersrand, produced an astonishing influx of population with rapid development in trade, and the demand for local coinage became widespread. President Paul Kruger the position and granted a bank concession to the National Bank of the Republic of South Africa in 1891 but imposed on the concessionary the obligation to establish a mint. The mint only produced vast quantities of coin from 1893. Due to the political aspect in the country, President Kruger became anxious to get coins of the new design into circulation. Orders were placed to Berlin (Germany) for a number of coins of each denomination. However, there was great criticism when the first coins arrived (Ponde, Half Ponde and Five Shillings - Crown). The wagon on the reverse design (The Coat of Arms of the Republic) had two shafts instead of one. The Transvaal wagons of that period, had one shaft. It is not certain how this error originated. This public’s negative reaction was most unfortunate for President Kruger as he was facing an upcoming election. To his dismay, yet another misfortune occurred on these coins. The engraver, Otto Schultz’s very small initials, inserted as is usual, were O.S.. In the Dutch language “OS” stands for “OX”. Every effort was being made to recover the situation. The Z.A.R coins not yet issued, were melted down. An immediate attempt was made to withdraw the coins that have already landed in circulation. It appears that the Government was successful since specimens of these coins are indeed very rare today.
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