Details:

1 Pond - Composition: Gold Fineness: 0.9160 Weight: 7.988g

Diameter 22.00 mm Thickness1.56 mm

Description:

KRUGER COINAGE - 1897 ISSUES

PRESIDENT PAUL KRUGER WAS THE THIRD PRESIDENT

OF WHAT WAS THEN KNOWN AS

THE ZUID AFRIKAANSCHE REPUBLIEK

In 1890/91 a lease was granted to the Nationale Bank of the ZAR to establish a State Mint in Pretoria. The coins were to be identical in weight with the prescription of the British Coinage Act of 1870. President Kruger, anxious to get the new coins in circulation had placed orders for coins dated 1892 with the Berlin Imperial Mint.

The first consignment of pounds, half pounds and crowns arrived with two shafts on the wagon and similar sized wheels as can be seen in the coat of arms on the reverse of the coins. This caused quite a stir and subsequent 1892 pounds and crowns were issued with correct single shaft wagons and the correct size of wheels, small in the front and larger wheels at the back. Futher consternation was caused by the Berlin 1892 issues. As was customary, the designer Otto Schultz had placed his initials (O.S.) below on the shoulder area of the bust of Paul Kruger as can be seen on the obverse

of the coins, only on the double shaft issues, which is Afrikaans for ox. The single shaft pound and the double shaft crowns are the scarcer items.

The discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand in 1885 turned the South African Republic from an impoverished state dominated by farmers to one where fortunes could be made from mining. In 1892 President Kruger, facing an election campaign, ordered the building of a mint and the striking of the republic's first full coinage series.