Coinage of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland)

[<k>]

A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE CURRENT SERIES

Eswatini's current coins still use three designs from 1974.

These appear on the reverse of the 10, 20 and 50 cents coins.

The 1 lilangeni and 2 emalangeni reverse designs date from the 1980s.


In 2024 Eswatini's coinage will be 50 years old.

Most sub-Saharan countries have changed their design themes in that time.

Eswatini has not.

Will it perhaps produce a new set of designs for the 50th anniversary?

[chrisild]

Thanks for that "series"! On one hand I thought, oh, the same designs again and again. On the other hand it is indeed amazing how few changes the pieces went through in all those years. Yes, there were modifications, but fairly subtle ones.

As for the 1 lilangeni coin being too close to the British 1 pound coin, both developed and produced by the Royal Mint, it is indeed strange that this was not avoided in the first place. Even if the mint had figured that hardly anybody would take lots of such coins from Swaziland to the UK and use them in vending machines ... heck, this was the late 20th century, and computers and databases were not all that uncommon.

[<k>]

See also:  Swaziland: unadopted designs.

[<k>]

Notice how the elephant on the 20 cents got more wrinkles and crinkles over the years.

[eurocoin]

In internal documents of the South African Mint, that I used to have access to, there was also a visual of a standard 5 emalangeni coin dated 2018. It seems that the commemorative was possibly an afterthought or that at least there may have been plans for a 2018-dated standard 5 emalangeni coin, which never materialized.