The Kruger Millions

The Legend of Buried Gold

According to legend, approximately £2 million in gold coins and bars – worth over US$500 million today – were hidden by or on behalf of President Paul Kruger to prevent capture by British forces in June 1900. The story goes that the gold was loaded onto wagons, protected by a large Boer commando, and buried somewhere in the mountains or bush of the Transvaal Lowveld (Mpumalanga) after coming under British attack. The only people who knew the exact location were reportedly killed the next day.

For more than a century, treasure hunters have searched the area between Machadodorp and Waterval Onder with metal detectors, but no authenticated buried hoard has ever been found in South Africa.

The Historical Evacuation (4 June 1900)

On 29 May 1900, as British forces prepared to take Pretoria, President Kruger and his government fled the capital to Middelburg. Orders were given to empty the Mint and National Bank. At 9am on 4 June 1900 – the day before British occupation – Jan Smuts arrived at the Mint, met with Jules Perrin (Head of the Mint) and Thomas Hugo (National Bank Manager), and ordered all gold to be collected, weighed, recorded and made ready for despatch to Pretoria Station.

Wooden boxes were transported the 500 metres from the Mint on Church Square to the station around noon. The train departed that afternoon on the Delagoa Bay Railway – the only line still controlled by the ZAR at that stage of the war – arriving in Middelburg at 2am the following day.

The Accounting Discrepancy

When Lord Roberts entered Pretoria on 5 June 1900, he ordered his troops to collect the gold from the Mint – and found it empty. British records suggested that gold to the value of £2.4 million (approximately 542,500 ounces) had been confiscated from at least 10 gold mines from the start of the war by the ZAR government.

However, documents showed the Mint and National Bank held a combined 294,000 pond (75,430 ounces) up to 5 June 1900. Adding the 542,500 ounces confiscated from mines gives a starting point of 617,930 ounces.

Deductions include:

• 650,000 pond (166,766 ounces) – unspent government notes and currency commandeered under Kommando Christiaan de Wet
• 750,000 pond (192,422 ounces) – removed by Jan Smuts on 4 June 1900 and sent to Middelburg

This leaves approximately 258,742 ounces of unaccounted gold – the origin of the Kruger Millions legend.

The Real Kruger Millions: Destination Europe

Sometime around 20 May 1900, select members of the ZAR government held a secret meeting where it was decided to move the majority of remaining gold to European bank accounts owned by the ZAR, predominantly in the Netherlands. The man charged with managing this gold in Europe was Dr Willem Leyds.

President Kruger himself left Lourenço Marques on the Dutch warship HNLMS Gelderland in October 1900, arriving in France on 22 November 1900. He later settled in Clarens, Switzerland, where he died on 14 July 1904. No gold was found with him.

The 2021 "Lost Hoard" Discovery

In February 2021, the South African Mint announced the discovery of a large parcel of authentic 1893–1900 Kruger gold ponds that had been stored in the Netherlands during the early 20th century, then transferred to Switzerland before World War II for safekeeping. The coins remained in a Swiss vault for decades until they were sold at auction and acquired by the SA Mint.

Verification and Certification

The authenticity of the Lost Hoard was independently verified and graded by the Numismatic Guarantee Corporation (NGC) in Florida. Each coin was individually graded, certified and slabbed. The certification confirms authenticity, legal tender status (1893–1900), and correct weight of each individual coin.

Two Limited-Edition Sets Released

• Half-Pond Set: 1893–1900 Lost Hoard Kruger half-pond with a 2019 1/10 oz gold privy-mark proof Krugerrand – 233 units available
• Full Pond Set: 1893–1900 Lost Hoard Kruger full pond and a 2019 ¼ oz gold privy-mark proof Krugerrand – 677 units available

The packaging includes a replica of the original money bag in which the coins remained hidden for more than a century. Honey Mamabolo, Managing Director of the South African Mint, described the discovery as "truly awe-inspiring" and "the closest, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to physically own authentic remnants of the Transvaal gold."

Depending on condition and year, a single Double Shaft Kruger Pond in this Lost Hoard collection ranges in value from R14,500 to R250,000.

Other Verified Finds of ZAR Gold

While no authenticated buried hoard matching the full legend has been found, several documented discoveries of ZAR gold have occurred:

• Union Buildings (1911): Two cases containing gold bars (approx £4,000 worth) were unearthed while digging foundations at Meintjieskop, Pretoria. The two discoverers each received £1,000.
• Frankfort Hoard (1949): Farmworker Samuel M'taung discovered approximately 16,000 ZAR gold ponds in a hole near a bridge on the farm Botmansbank near Frankfort. The finder was charged with theft but found innocent. Most coins were reportedly melted down; only a tiny fraction survive.
• Chrissiesmeer (1935): A farmworker uncovered gold sovereigns while ploughing, leading to the recovery of 28 Kruger ponds and 16 half-crowns from the reigns of Queen Victoria and King Edward VII. The hoard was traced to a highway robbery in October 1912.
• Ermelo discovery (c.1960s–2001): A Zulu family living on a farm discovered approximately 4,000 Kruger pounds over several decades, selling them one by one to a collector. When the discovery became public in 2001, it sparked a modern gold rush.

Modern Scholarship

Dr. Pierre Edwards, a historian and former Springbok rugby player, has argued that the "real Kruger Millions" was not buried gold but a large section of the ZAR archives that was removed from Pretoria, shipped to Europe via Delagoa Bay, and only decades later returned to the State Archives at the Union Buildings – a precious cultural-historical treasure used by researchers ever since.

As early as 1932, Dr. Gustav Preller – a Boer War officer – declared that at the time of Pretoria's surrender, the treasury held only £750,000, all of which had been accounted for – mostly paid to suppliers of the Boer commandos, with some gold sent to Germany to be minted and returned to the treasury.

Sources

• Wikipedia: Kruger Millions
• Western Cape Numismatic Society: South African Coin Hoards (Pierre H. Nortje, June 2024)
• South African Mint: "South African Mint releases the Krugerrand 'Lost Hoard'" (February 2021)
• DispatchLIVE: "'The lost hoard' of rare SA gold coins found in a Swiss vault released" (28 February 2021)
• News24: "TAKE A LOOK | 'Kruger Millions' discovered in a Swiss vault – and now for sale" (25 February 2021)
• The Guardian: "Going for Transvaal gold" (12 June 2001)
• The Citizen/Middelburg Observer: "Rugby hero, headmaster – now he speaks about the Kruger Millions" (15 October 2025)
• The New York Times: "BOER WAR YARN IS EXPLODED" (21 February 1932)

Revision History