1902 Veld Pond

Specifications

Denomination: 1 pond
Series: ZAR pond series
Years of issue: 1902
Composition: 100% Gold
KM: 11
Key mintages: 986 (Heritage Auctions AU58 listing; krugerrandtrading.co.za) vs 968 (Heritage Auctions AU Details listing) — discrepancy; gold refined to practically 100% purity / 24 carat; weight and diameter unverified

No freely licensed photo located (2026-09-16) — illustration placeholder AI-generated illustration — not a photograph of a genuine coin.

KM11 · 986 struck at a field mint in Pilgrims Rest during the Second Boer War · only ~190 certified across PCGS/NGC/SANGS.

History

Struck in 1902 by Boer forces on the run from the British, at the ‘Staatsmunt te Velde’ (state mint in the field) set up in the veld of Pilgrims Rest in the northeastern Transvaal, to pay soldiers of the Second Boer War (Heritage Auctions; krugerrandtrading.co.za, accessed 2026-09-16).
Dies were hand-engraved with a small hardened chisel (‘Z.A.R. 1902’ obverse, ‘Een Pond’ reverse) using Transvaal Gold Mining Estates equipment; the dies cracked six times during hardening before a usable set survived nearly 1,000 strikes (tokencoins.com, accessed 2026-09-16).
The gold, refined by assayer W. Coney to practically 100% purity, gave the Veld Pond a gold value slightly higher than the British sovereign; the Lydenburg alluvial gold kept cracking when rolled, and mercury had to be added to make it workable (tokencoins.com; krugerrandtrading.co.za, accessed 2026-09-16).
By the time minting finished, the Boer War had ended — the Veld Pond is the last of the famed ZAR ‘Big 5’ gold coins (krugerrandtrading.co.za, accessed 2026-09-16).

One-year type (1902) — the only issue of the field mint; cataloged KM11, Fr-4, Hern-Z54 (Heritage Auctions, accessed 2026-09-16).
Among the final ZAR gold issues alongside the regular 1902-dated ponds; the crude handmade character is the defining feature of the type (Heritage Auctions; tokencoins.com, accessed 2026-09-16).

Certified populations: ≈190 graded across PCGS, NGC and SANGS (krugerrandtrading.co.za, accessed 2026-09-16)

MINTAGE DISCREPANCY: Heritage’s AU58 listing and krugerrandtrading.co.za give 986 struck; a separate Heritage listing (AU Details, reverse scratched) says 968 — both figures are reported here rather than reconciled (Heritage Auctions; krugerrandtrading.co.za, accessed 2026-09-16).
COUNTERFEIT GUIDANCE: genuine pieces show hand-engraved, irregular lettering and hand-filed edge grooves — crudeness is a feature, not a flaw; verify weight/fineness and insist on PCGS/NGC/SANGS certification, since only ~190 examples have been graded across the three services (tokencoins.com; krugerrandtrading.co.za, accessed 2026-09-16).
Value factors: many survivors were mounted as brooches or watch-chain pendants, or pierced — Heritage notes the type ‘often exhibits damage from mounting’; untouched, unmounted examples are the prize (Heritage Auctions; krugerrandtrading.co.za, accessed 2026-09-16).
Weight and diameter are not published in consulted sources — verify against a certified example rather than a catalog figure (author’s research across Heritage Auctions, tokencoins.com, krugerrandtrading.co.za, accessed 2026-09-16).