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South African Coin Doomed From the Start
 | By Chris Woltermann, World Coin News
May 05, 2008 |
South Africa's 2 1/2-cent coin was doomed even before it began circulating. Perceived commercial needs had prompted the decision to mint it, but these had been changing due to inflationary pressures and the impending adoption of a decimal monetary system of which it was planned to be a part.
The new denomination lasted from 1961 through 1964. Its first-year mintage was sufficient to permit its wide distribution but was nevertheless small enough, compared to the mint runs of the other new low denominations, to betray officialdom's doubts about the coin's public acceptance. Subsequent developments justified this skepticism. By 1964, demand for the 2 1/2-cent coin was so modest that the Pretoria mint produced several thousand fewer business strikes than proofs.
Collectors can readily cite similar short-lived experiments from around the world. Prominent 19th century examples include Great Britain's double florin and the United States' 20-cent piece. The Austrian 20 groschen of the early 1950s offers a more recent parallel.
The South African coin, like other such ephemeral issues, appeals to collectors. It's an attractive coin with a lot going for it beyond aesthetic considerations. None of its business strikes are truly common, and some are quite scarce, as are all of its proofs. Yet, collectors can still assemble a complete set - four proofs and four uncirculated business strikes - at little cost. (The outlay for my set was about $50, plus patience.)
Best of all, the coin has a great story behind it. Its lineage goes back to Great Britain's threepence. This small silver coin, along with other British monies, came into use in southern Africa some decades after the British government took control of the Cape Colony from the Batavian Republic's Dutch administrators in 1806.
The threepence of Queen Victoria's era was the model for the smallest silver coin issued by the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek, the famed Z.A.R., when it inaugurated the first African system of British-inspired coinage in the 1890s. Nicknamed the "tickey," the Z.A.R.'s threepence boasted its own designs but followed Victorian precedents in its weight, diameter and sterling alloy. The coin's weight and breadth specifications would become those of the 2 1/2-cent piece.
Minting operations in the Z.A.R. ceased with the British conquest of the country in 1902. While its old coins and others imported from Britain circulated for several decades thereafter, its Pretoria mint remained inactive until 1923. The mint then resumed production on behalf of the Union of South Africa, a centralized state formed in 1910 when the erstwhile Z.A.R., earlier renamed the Transvaal, united with three other British-ruled territories.
The Union's coinage included vast quantities of threepences. At least a few pieces were struck in each year from 1923 to 1960, the final full year of the Union's existence. In virtually every year, the popular coin's mintage exceeded that of the next smallest denomination, the sixpence, sometimes by millions. South African law set the metallic composition of the Union's threepence at .800 fine silver. This standard prevailed through 1950 but then dropped to .500 fine silver for succeeding years.
The later 2 1/2-cent pieces were likewise subject to this standard. In effect, the Union of South Africa's threepence became the Republic of South Africa's 2 1/2 cent. Two factors spurred this monetary shift. The first was the decision of South African voters in 1960 to relinquish their country's dominion status and to reconstitute South Africa as a republic having no ties to the British crown. Perhaps exerting a more telling impact, South Africans also decided to abandon their old British-style money - of pounds, shillings and pence for a decimal system in which a new unit, the South African rand, would comprise 100 cents.
There are continuities as well as discontinuities between the design elements of the threepence and the 2 1/2 cent. Both coins have a portrait on the obverse. For the threepence, it's a portrait of whichever British monarch ruled contemporaneous with the coin's striking. The 2 1/2-cent piece features the more republican-friendly Jan van Riebeeck, the Dutch founder of Cape Town.
Reverse designs of the two coins are broadly comparable, excepting the threepence's quickly abandoned Type 1 reverse. The Type 2 reverse, begun in 1925, features a flowering protea that also appears on the 2 1/2 cent. On the threepence's reverse, the protea lies in an open triangle composed of three bundles of rods (which are not, strictly speaking, fasces). These bundles were omitted from the 2 1/2-cent coin, thereby giving its reverse an uncluttered, stunningly attractive appearance.
Modifying the threepence's designs to suit its republican replacement proved fairly simple. Far more difficult was the decision to mint the new coin in the first place. There were good reasons pro and con. The arguments in favor of a 2 1/2-cent coin involved sentiment and utility. South Africans liked their threepence, and they would, government officials thought, like its successor. South Africans also found the threepence useful, especially for buying newspapers and activating parking meters.
Sentiment and utility change, however, and the late 1950s saw prices for newspapers and parking on the rise. Moreover, the widely anticipated transition to a decimal monetary system made merchants prone to increase their prices to levels that did not need to accommodate a denomination as awkward as 2 1/2 cents.
South African monetary authorities opted for the proposed coin, but they hedged their bet by keeping the initial mintage just marginally adequate for circulation. Relative mintage figures speak volumes. Whereas the 2 1/2-cent piece had a first-year mintage of 299,090 examples, the sixpence's reincarnation - the new 5-cent coin - had a corresponding mintage nearly five times as great.
The scant demand for the 2 1/2-cent piece dissipated almost immediately. Year-to-year mintage statistics for the coin over its brief lifetime tell the story:
Despite a negligible increase in production after 1962, the 2 1/2-cent coin was clearly on its way to oblivion.
Collectible examples are scarce, especially in full Mint State and unimpaired proof grades. Some dates are even scarcer than their mintages suggest. The ostensibly common 1961 business strike often appears in AU, a disappointment for MS collectors. In my experience, the 1964 business strike is disproportionately hard to locate. The consistently scarce proofs are available only from having been removed from extremely low-mintage proof sets.
A case can be made that the 2 1/2-cent piece achieved rebirth in 1997 as a "non-circulating commemorative proof coin." The South African Mint has continued to strike this "coin" for the past 10 years. Of course, it's not a real coin in any meaningful sense. Numismatically sophisticated collectors will focus on the earlier pieces meant to be used as money. With their lovely reverse, they are among the most beautiful modern African coins.
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