The “Perfect” Forgery
The Story of the Fake Kruger Pond of 1900
Part 1: The Levine Version
Pierre H. Nortje (September 2024)
A monthly meeting of the South African Numismatic Society was held at the South African Museum in Cape Town on Monday 25th November 1968. The minutes of the meeting record that Dr. Frank Mitchell informed fellow members that he had recently learnt, whilst in the Transvaal, that a number of restrikes of the Kruger Pond of 1900 had been offered for sale.
In Bickels Coin & Medal News for December 1968 / January 1969, the following short notice was published.
In the next Bickels issue (February / March 1969) it was followed up by the following report, based on the minutes of the South African Numismatic Society (SANS) meeting of November of the previous year.
For the next 5 years, as far as the author could find, very little was written in numismatic publications about this issue. Then in 1974, Elias Levine published his “Coinage and Counterfeits of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek”. In chapter 18 of his book, he describes the 1900 forgery in detail.
Levine says that the appearance of the piece is superb and it is in brilliant uncirculated condition. He speculates that the piece must have been struck with original dies which must have been stolen. The forger then cleaned the dies with sandpaper or abrasive paste and re-engraved them – the result being an improvement on the original design.
Levine notes that in terms of the size, milling and weight, there is practically no difference between the original coin and the fake. Regarding its appearance, he lists seven differences on the reverse and three on the obverse, the most obvious being (on the original coin) the flat (vs. full feathered) eagle’s breast and its claws less clear.
Source: The Numismatist, November 2022 with original source noted as Randcoin.
In his book, Levine does not give the name of the forger, but calls him “K.M.D.” (Kruger Millions Discoverer). He says that the forged pond was first released in South Africa in 1968, as part of the so-called “Kruger Millions” hoard and sold for R30 each. (Author’s note: Approximately the same price as a 1 Oz gold Krugerrand then). The forger was apparently soon afterwards confronted by various collectors who suspected that the coins were fakes.
Driven into a corner, he then volunteered to give one of the coins to the Pretoria Mint to verify and authorize its authenticity, and unexpectedly, the Mint found the coin to be genuine. However, it was thought that the forger handed over a genuine coin to the Mint for examination and not one of his fakes.
Levine says that he heard these anecdotes about the coin from other people (thus on hearsay) and continues by noting that 2600 of the fakes were struck with original dies that had disappeared from the Mint Museum at some undetermined time. The coins were either struck in Italy or Switzerland. At some time, the forger buried some of the coins underground to try to give them an aged appearance showing some patina, but this proved unsuccessful.
Many years elapsed without much further being written on the subject, but then in the early 1990s, Levine wrote a short article for the Journal of the Association of South African Numismatic Societies (Number 4, page 21) entitled “The Inside Story of the Perfect Forgery.”
What the author initially found confusing about the article, is that Levine reveals that he personally spoke to the forger which he named as Gerhard van Niekerk (In his book in 1974, he said that the stories about the coin were hearsay). However, as we shall see, Levine and Van Niekerk met 2 years later in court where they conversed on the issue. (In part 2, we will come back to this issue).
Levine continues by saying that after Van Niekerk received a certificate of authenticity from the South African Mint, he “gaily” (happily?) continued selling his coins. Levine and Matthy Esterhuisen (sic) from the Natural Cultural and Open Museum in Pretoria, however, were not convinced and determined various characteristics that proved beyond any doubt that the Van Niekerk ponde were in fact forgeries.
As a matter of interest, Matthy Esterhuysen (correct spelling) wrote a book entitled “Ons Gelderfenis” (Our Money Heritage) in 1980 and refers to the forgeries. She says (page 35) that the fakes were first spotted in 1969 and after a long prolonged court case, the accused confessed outside the court that the coins were struck with original dies in Switzerland. As far back as 1973, she wrote in Bickels Coin & Medal News (June/July issue page 8) that newspaper reporters heard of the story, and visited Van Niekerk’s premises (she does not mention his name). He was so shocked that he closed his office for a few days.
The reader will note that the two countries, Switzerland and Italy are frequently mentioned in this paper. Although, as we shall see, the coins were struck in Italy, Van Niekerk must have told everyone that he discovered the “Kruger Millions” in Switzerland.
The following is copied verbatim from Levine’s article:
Van Niekerk might have continued selling his “Kruger Millions” ponde with impunity but for the fact that he was a great womanizer. As an act of revenge, his wife told the police the story of the stolen dies and of the forgeries. They raided his shop circa 1976 and closed it.
Levine was called as a State witness, as were other prominent numismatists such as Dr. Bickel. Dr. Annandale gave evidence for the accused. The hearing was completed and the case postponed for judgement.
Pictures at top: Eli Levine and Dr. W.C. Annandale who was the founding chairman of the Orange Free State Numismatic Society (now defunct) and the Stellaland Society (also defunct). Picture source: Publication of the 6th South African Numismatic Convention held at the Elangeni Hotel in Durban 5-10 July 1976. Picture bottom left: W.H. (Willie) van As, President of the Transvaal Numismatic Society and also the Bullion Officer at the Mint. He was also a witness for the state. Picture Source: Publication of the 5th South African Numismatic Convention held at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg 6-13 April 1974. Picture bottom right of Arthur Bickel, father of Dr. Richard Bickel who was a state witness. They co-owned Bickels coins. Source: Bickels Coin & Medal News, June / July 1975.
It seemed that Van Niekerk would be acquitted, so a former school teacher who at one time had been a partner of Van Niekerk, and who could not tolerate this possibility went to the police. He told them that if they took him to Italy, he would show them where the gold had been bought, where the forgeries had been struck and where the dies had been buried.
The police returned to South Africa with the stolen dies and all the evidence they needed to secure a conviction. Van Niekerk’s advocate insisted that the magistrate had to make his judgement on the facts before him, since the hearing of evidence had been closed, and the trial could not be re-opened for further evidence.
There was talk of Van Niekerk being re-arrested as he left court, and of the new evidence being presented at a new trial. The magistrate found Van Niekerk guilty of forgery, but postponed sentence for five years. There appears to have been some form of plea-bargaining, and Van Niekerk agreed to close his shop permanently, and not deal in coins again.
Van Niekerk retired to Durban where he sold works of art, no doubt all genuine. He died before the return date for the sentence. As a post script, Levine mentions that Van Niekerk is also credited, inter alia, with silver and gold half-pond forgeries, but provides no more information on the matter.
Regarding the dies used to strike the Van Niekerk forgeries, the author received the following interesting information from Glenn Schoeman, managing director of Gold Reef City Mint and one of the founder members of the South African Association of Numismatic Dealers.
He says that the stolen dies were examined by Tommy Sasseen from the South African Mint, and they were perfect. The only thing that gave them away was that the breast feathers of the eagle were perfectly "up" and full. The genuine coins were struck on the Oom Paul press, and there was not enough to get the chest to "come up" fully.
(As an addendum to this two-part paper, we will post a short article by Glenn on the Van Niekerk story).
In Part 2, to follow, we will take a closer look at issues surrounding the dies.