Second Coinage of the Republic of South Africa

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Flag of the Republic of South Africa.

In 1965 the Republic of South Africa introduced a new coin series. The previous coins had largely retained the sizes and designs of the predecimal system, but this new coinage had new designs and was generally smaller and lighter. The 2½ cents coin was discontinued, and a 2 cents was introduced instead, which was more in keeping with a decimal system. In the previous coinage, the ½ cent and 1 cent had been brass, while the higher denominations were in silver. In the new coinage, there was no ½ cent coin at first, but the 1 and 2 cents coins were now in bronze, and the rest of the coinage was nickel, apart from the rand, which was silver.

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The previous coinage had shown a full face portrait of Jan van Riebeeck, the Dutch founder of Cape Town, on the obverse. A new portrait of van Riebeeck, shown in profile, was now provided by South African numismatic artist Tommy Sasseen. South Africa maintained its adherence to the policy of apartheid, and while whites were privileged under this system, the Afrikaners - not the English-speaking descendants of the British - ruled the roost, hence van Riebeeck's appearance on the coinage.

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The previous coinage had shown the country name in both languages on every coin, with either SUID-AFRIKA on the left side and SOUTH AFRICA on the right, or vice versa; the positions alternated from one denomination to the next. The new coinage minted included two types of coin per denomination, one type showing only "SUID-AFRIKA" and the other only "SOUTH AFRICA".

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The reverse of the 1 cent coin featured a new design of the two sparrows, which has been a standard feature of South African coinage since 1923. The beautiful design was also the work of Tommy Sasseen.

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The reverse of the 2 cents coin featured a superb design by Jan van Zyl of a wildebeest about to charge. The wildebeest was featured here for the first time but is now a fixture on the South African coinage.

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The 5 cents design, by Tommy Sasseen, features a blue crane (Grus paradisea), which is the national bird of South Africa. The crane has also been a feature of South African coinage ever since.

 

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The 10 cents featured an aloe, designed by Tommy Sasseen.

 

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The protea had been a feature of the two previous coinages. Now it was depicted realistically for the first time, on the reverse of the 20 cents coin. Tommy Sasseen included a Protea cynaroides, the king protea, and Protea repens, commonly known as the sugarbush protea.

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The reverse of the 50 cents coin featured an African lily (Agapanthus africanus), an arum lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica) and a strelitzia (Strelitzia reginae). The initials TS show that it was another design by Tommy Sasseen.

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The one rand coin, minted in silver, showed South Africa's national animal, the springbok. This new design was by artist Jan van Zyl.

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Reviewing this set, it is noticeable that the lower denominations - 1c, 2c and 5c - all includes the cents symbol (e.g. "1c"), but the higher denominations (apart from the rand) show only the numerals.

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This is a fine set, with some classic designs. I like all the animal designs, my favourite by far being the wildebeest, closely followed by the sparrows. All the animals appear very alive and realistic.

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Now for a little political history. South Africa at this time was not a dictatorship, but a limited democracy that held elections. However, it was a highly restrictive democracy, with a limited electorate that consisted mainly of the white minority. The majority of the population was disenfranchised and oppressed.

From Wikipedia:

National Party (South Africa)

The National Party (Afrikaans: Nasionale Party) was a political party in South Africa founded in 1915 and disbanded in 1997. It first became the governing party of the country in 1924. It was in opposition during the World War II years but it returned to power and was again in the government from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. At this time, it began implementing its policy of racial segregation, known as "Apartheid" – the legal system of political, economic and social separation of the races intended to maintain and extend political and economic control of South Africa by the white minority. The policies of the party also included the establishment of a republic, and the promotion of Afrikaner culture.

In 1959, the Bantu Self-Government Act established so-called Homelands (sometime pejoratively called Bantustans) for ten different black tribes. The ultimate goal of the NP was to move all Black South Africans into one of these homelands (although they might continue to work in South Africa as "guest workers"), leaving what was left of South Africa (about 87 percent of the land area) with what would then be a White majority, at least on paper. As the homelands were seen by the apartheid government as embryonic independent nations, all black South Africans were registered as citizens of the homelands, not of the nation as a whole, and were expected to exercise their political rights only in the homelands. Accordingly, the three token parliamentary seats that had been reserved for white representatives of black South Africans in Cape Province were scrapped. The other three provinces – Transvaal, the Orange Free State, and Natal – had never allowed any black representation.

Coloureds were removed from the Common Roll of Cape Province in 1953. Instead of voting for the same representatives as white South Africans, they could now only vote for four white representatives to speak for them. Later, in 1968, the Coloureds were disenfranchised altogether. In the place of the four parliamentary seats, a partially elected body was set up to advise the government in an amendment to the Separate Representation of Voters Act. This made the electorate entirely white, as Asians had never had any representation.

In a move unrecognised by the rest of the world, the former German colony of South West Africa (now Namibia), which South Africa had occupied in World War I, was effectively incorporated into South Africa as a fifth province, with seven members elected to represent its White citizens in the Parliament of South Africa. The White minority of South West Africa, predominantly German and Afrikaner, considered its interests akin to those of the Afrikaners in South Africa and therefore supported the National Party in subsequent elections.

These reforms all bolstered the NP politically, as they removed black and Coloured influence – which was hostile to the NP – from the electoral process, and incorporated the pro-Nationalist whites of South West Africa. The NP increased its parliamentary majority in almost every election between 1948 and 1977.

Numerous segregation laws had been passed before the NP took power in 1948. Among the most significant were the Natives Land Act, No 27 of 1913, and the Natives (Urban Areas) Act of 1923. The former made it illegal for blacks to purchase or lease land from whites except in reserves, which restricted black occupancy to less than eight percent of South Africa's land. The latter laid the foundations for residential segregation in urban areas. Apartheid laws passed by the NP after 1948 included the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, the Immorality Act, the Population Registration Act, and the Group Areas Act, which prohibited nonwhite males from being in certain areas of the country (especially at night) unless they were employed there.

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From Wikipedia:

Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd (1901 – 1966), also known as Dr. H. F. Verwoerd, was a South African professor, newspaper editor-in-chief and politician who was Prime Minister of South Africa from 1958 until his death. He is regarded as the mastermind behind socially engineering and implementing the racial policies of apartheid, the system of legal racial classification and forced racial segregation that existed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.

Verwoerd played an instrumental role in helping the far right National Party (South Africa) come to power in 1948 serving as their propagandist and political strategist. He eventually rose to party leader in 1958. During his time in office Verwoerd rigidly enforced Apartheid policies through introducing further oppressive laws, which diminished the rights of ordinary individuals, especially black South Africans. He greatly empowered, modernised and enlarged the police, secret police and army. Verwoerd ordered a secret all-out offensive against those who opposed apartheid, which resulted in tens of thousands of people being detained, imprisoned, exiled, tortured or killed (Sharpeville Massacre). Verwoerd was a right wing authoritarian leader and Afrikaner nationalist. He was a strong advocate of the Afrikaner volk, language, culture and Christian religion. He held the belief that white control over South Africa could only continue if the races lived apart. He survived an assassination attempt in 1960, succumbing to a subsequent one in 1966.

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From Wikipedia:

On 6 September 1966, Verwoerd was assassinated in Cape Town, shortly after entering the House of Assembly at 14:15. A mixed-race, uniformed parliamentary messenger named Dimitri Tsafendas stabbed Verwoerd in the neck and chest four times, before being subdued by other members of the Assembly. Four members of Parliament who were also trained doctors rushed to the aid of Verwoerd and started administering cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Verwoerd was rushed to Groote Schuur Hospital, but was pronounced dead upon arrival.

Tsafendas escaped the death penalty on the grounds of insanity. Judge Andries Beyers ordered Tsafendas to be imprisoned indefinitely at the "State President's pleasure."