The Library · Research & Long-Form
The journal.
The mints, the presses, the people, and the stories behind South African coinage. Long-form research from the Jardines Curatorial Desk — for collectors who want to understand why a piece matters, not just what it is.
Edited by Ben & Johan Ungerer · The Jardines Curatorial Desk
Anatomy of the Single 9, 1898.
One coin. One overstamp. One British raid on the Pretoria Mint. The story of how a misappropriated die produced the most prestigious coin in South African numismatics — and how to read its diagnostics today. An eight-minute read tracing the coin's full provenance from the morning it was struck to its R 40.10 million sale at Heritage NYINC, January 2025.
Read the article →The full journal
Twenty-Three Articles & CountingMints & Production
Eight articlesAnatomy of the Single 9, 1898
The unique Pretoria Mint overstamp — six owners, seventy-one years, and a R 40.10 million public auction record.
No. 03The Pretoria Mint, 1893 — 1900
The Republic's first local mint, the heart of late ZAR production, and the operation that struck the Single 9.
No. 04The Oom Paul Press
The legendary press at the centre of South African mint history — its origins, its operators, and the coins it produced.
No. 05The Berlin Mint connection
The role of the Royal Prussian Mint in early ZAR coin design and production, and the dies that travelled to the Cape.
No. 06The South African Mint today
From the Pretoria Mint of the Republic to the modern facility in Centurion — what gets struck, where, and by whom.
No. 07The Gold Reef City Mint
The working mint at Gold Reef City — an unusual chapter in private South African minting, and what it has struck.
No. 08The Orange Free State patterns, 1874 — 1888
The Republic that nearly had its own coinage — pattern strikes, their engravers, and why none of them entered circulation.
No. 09Krugerrand security features & international minting
How the world's most-traded bullion coin is protected against forgery, and where authorised strikings happen outside the SA Mint.
Banknote History
Three articlesThe face that never was
For forty-four years the founder of the Cape stared back from every banknote South Africans handled. Except he didn't.
No. 10The Griqualand-East £1 note, 1868
A rare local issue from one of the short-lived independent territories — its origins, its survival, and what it tells us about pre-Union currency.
No. 22Victorian-era Cape banknotes
The free-banking era reference. Eleven principal Cape issuers from c.1837 to 1921 — Bergman, Hern, and Nortje as the source chain.
People
Three articlesThe people behind the coins
Engravers, mint masters, governors, and personalities — the human side of South African numismatic history. Includes the new Presidents & Authorities section.
No. 12Dr. Johannes Postmus, 1932 — 1945
The Reserve Bank's second governor — the wartime years, the gold-standard exit, and the banknotes signed in his hand.
No. 13The Reserve Bank governors
Every Governor of the South African Reserve Bank, 1921 to today — the policies they shaped and the banknotes that bear their signatures.
Mysteries & Hoards
Four articlesThe Kruger Millions
The legend of the lost Boer gold — the narrative, the documented evidence, and the research the story has spawned for over a century.
No. 15The Menné Half Pond mystery
A focused investigation into one of the most intriguing ZAR questions — what we know, what we don't, and what the diagnostics suggest.
No. 16South African coin hoards
The major documented discoveries, what they tell us about survival rates, and the implications for collecting today.
No. 21The Perfect Forgery
The Van Niekerk 1900 Kruger Pond forgeries — sourced from Nortje's three-part WCNS essay, Malan's Kruger Gold (2019), and the Tommy Sasseen interviews.
Economic History
Five articlesThe gold behind the coins
Sources of the 1892 coinage, the metallurgy of the Witwatersrand reefs, and the origins of the Veldpond emergency mint.
No. 18Gold standard & economic history
The economic context behind South African gold coinage and the broader monetary systems that shaped what was struck and when.
No. 19The history of the SA pound symbol
How the pound sign travelled from Latin scribal shorthand to the desks of the Cape, and the orthographic conventions of pre-decimal South Africa.
No. 20The historical timeline
The full chronological framework of South African coinage — every major event from the VOC era to the present day.
No. 23The Voortrekker coinage
What coins did the Voortrekkers actually carry north out of the Cape? Cape rixdollars, British colonial sterling, Dutch and Portuguese silver — Nortje's WCNS framing.