Dinosaurs and Numismatics
Pierre H. Nortje (August 2024)
Introduction
Although man’s interest in dinosaurs and palaeontology goes back to pre-Victorian times, it is believed that in the early 1990s, it almost became an obsession due to a man by the name of Michael Crichton. In 1990 he published his novel Jurassic Park in which dinosaur DNA is obtained from mosquitoes preserved in amber. Although deemed impossible to do this, some scientists did debate the possibility – and that, for countless millions, was more than enough.
In 1993 the movie was released and directed by Crichton’s friend, Steven Spielberg. Jurassic Park was a blockbuster hit and went on to gross almost a billion dollars worldwide, surpassing Spielberg’s own E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to become the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of James Cameron’s Titanic in 1997. It is said that after the film’s release, the number of people who wanted to become palaeontologists doubled. A craze was born.
Commercial exploitation
Worldwide, business people began to see a huge opportunity in the public’s newfound fascination with dinosaurs, and a flood of books, posters, toys and other mass-marketable products followed suit. Soon, as expected, dinosaurs also started to appear in collectors markets like numismatics and philately. Initially, it was predominantly private companies that produced these, but eventually, official government issues followed the lead. Most interestingly, the South African Post Office preempted the craze by issuing a set of dinosaur stamps a decade before Jurassic Park was released!
Karoo's prehistoric animals on stamps of South Africa 1982. Source: Paleophilatelie.eu
Dinosaurs and Numismatics
According to Krause Publications Standard Catalog of World Coins, the first coin featuring a dinosaur was issued by Mongolia in 1989, the silver 100 Tögrög depicting the Nemegtosaurus. This was the only coin featuring a dinosaur that was issued before Jurassic Park was released. And for quite a while, that was all there was to say about dinosaur coins, the reason being that dinosaurs weren’t considered that important by the general public.
Source: Picture left from deviantart.com and picture right from Mongolian Coins.
But when the movie was released four years later, the floodgates opened. As CoinsWeekly puts it “With the success of Jurassic Park, the dinosaur hype kicked in almost immediately. A wealth of coins featuring dinosaur motifs was produced in the same year. They came from Gibraltar and the Isle of Man, from Equatorial Guinea and the Congo, Liberia, Guyana, and the Sahrawi Republic. And all of these coins depicted dinosaurs known from the movie: Velociraptor, Brachiosaurus and, of course, the dreaded Tyrannosaurus Rex”.
A silver 10 Dollars from Sierra Leone of 1997 featuring a Velociraptor. Notice the obverse carries the Jurassic Park logo.
Source: NGC Grading
A silver 750 Dinara from Bosnia-Herzegovina of 1993 featuring a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Source: Coinsberg
The Royal Mint’s three-coin collection in association with the Natural History Museum. The collectable 50p coin series featuring tyrannosaurus, stegosaurus and diplodocus is. As reported by The Sun, Rebecca Morgan of the Royal Mint said: “For nearly 200 million years, dinosaurs roamed the Earth so it’s fitting that they are honoured forever on an official UK coin”. In 2023 the Royal Mint also produced the so-called The Age of Dinosaurs Coin Collection.
Dinosaurs on South African Coins
From 1965 to 1983, South Africa produced gold R2 coins, similar to the British Sovereign, featuring Jan van Riebeeck on the obverse. Similar, but smaller, R1 coins were also produced.
Then in 1997, the SA Mint launched a non-circulating commemorative proof R2 series struck in 24ct gold. This was a thematic series with the first five years (1997 to 2001) covering palaeontology (not exclusively dinosaurs) being 1997 (Mrs Ples – Plesianthropus) 1998 (Coelacanth – the living fossil) 1999 (Thrinaxodon) 2000 (Little Foot) and 2002 (Gondwana – continental drift) – see following picture.
Source: Randcoin
More than one and a half decades followed before a dinosaur was again featured on a local coin. In 2018, the South African Mint announced that a five-coin palaeontology collection in 24-carat gold will be produced.
Tumi Tsehlo, the MD of the South African Mint said that the five coins in the 2018 Natura series, aptly named “Rise of the Dinosaurs” will be available in 1oz with a face value of R100 as well as in fractionals – ½ oz with a face value of R50, ¼ oz with a face value of R20, 1/10 oz with a face value of R10 and 1/20 oz with a face value of R5, with each depicting a different archosaur, all in limited mintages.
Source: Online Coin Club
Here is a short description of the coins (Source: SA Mint): -
Depicted on the 1/20oz R5 coin is the Euparkeria, a reptile which lived approximately 235 million years ago during the Middle Triassic Period. It was first discovered at the beginning of the 20th century in South Africa. Euparkeria was one of the first bipedal vertebrates with legs longer than their arms, which suggests that they could move around quadrupedally.
Depicted on the 1/10oz R10 coin is Erythrosuchus from the late Triassic of South Africa and Namibia. The Erythrosuchus Africanus was approximately 5 m long and stood over 2 m tall, making it the largest predator of the time. The Erythrosuchus had an exceptionally large skull for its size, occupying approximately a fifth of its total body length. This creature walked on all fours with a semi-erect gait which would have enabled it to move more swiftly than other more primitive reptiles of the same size.
The Proterosuchidae, similar in form to the crocodile, features on the ¼oz R20 coin. The elongated snout of this creature resembles that of a crocodile or alligator which would suggest that it was a specialised fish-eater.
Depicted on the ½oz R50 coin is SA’s most famous find, the Massospondylus Carinatus, one of the most recognised dinosaurs in the world. Massospondylus is a prosauropod dinosaur that lived in the early Jurassic period, which makes it one of the oldest dinosaurs on Earth.
The 1oz R100 coin with a limited mintage of 1000 features the Coelophysids which were highly successful primitive theropod dinosaurs that lived on numerous continents from the late Triassic to early Jurassic periods. The small, agile bipedal dinosaur preyed on small animals and inhabited South Africa and Zimbabwe during the early part of the Jurassic period.
This series was followed in the next year (2019) by similar Natura issues (same denominations struck in gold) with the theme being palaeontology focusing on our human predecessors.
In the same year, the South African Mint issued the first Natura silver R25 featuring a dinosaur, the Euparkeria. This was the same animal that was depicted on the gold 1/10oz R10 coin of the previous year as described above. The next year (2020) the Coelophysids were featured as depicted on the gold 1oz R100 coin shown above. For some unknown reason the 2020 R25 issue is omitted from Hern’s catalogue of South African Coins and Patterns (2023/2024); only the 2019 issue is included.
Source: Randcoin
Other Issues
The author is not aware of any medallions or tokens issued in South Africa featuring dinosaurs. This is actually strange, as these were produced in their thousands overseas for many years as both individual items and collectable sets.
The only South African medallion that is related to the subject, was an issue that was included in the so-called The Medallic History of South Africa Set. It featured 60 gilded silver medals that were issued monthly over a five-year period between 1973 and 1978 by the Africana Commemorative Mint. One of the medallions commemorates the two palaeontologists Raymond Dart and Robert Bloom – see the picture below from Collectors World. The author could unfortunately not find a single picture of the medallion.
The author would welcome any input to this article, especially if any readers are aware of other dinosaur numismatic issues from South Africa.