The “Perfect” Forgery
The Story of the Fake Kruger Pond of 1900
Part 2: The Sasseen Version
Pierre H. Nortje (September 2024)
Tommy Sasseen was the Chief Die-sinker of the SA Mint during the 1960s and early 1970s. Of his many accomplishments, he was tasked with adapting Otto Schultz’s and Coert Steinberg’s original designs for the master dies of the 1967 Krugerrand. Picture source: Nuusbrief van die SA Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns, Augustus 2017.
In his book “Kruger’s Gold – The Story of the Transvaal Gold during and after the Boer War” (2019:191) Professor Francois Malan gives us Tommy Sasseen’s take on the Van Niekerk forgery. Malan says that he had personal discussions with Sasseen on the matter.
As we shall see, there seem to be differences between the Levine and Sasseen accounts. Firstly, Levine told us that the court case was held after the police raided Van Niekerk’s shop in 1976, while according to Sasseen, the court case was held in 1973, the year before he left the Mint to start a private business. This meant that when Levine’s book “The Coinage and Counterfeits of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek” was published in 1974, the court case was already held, but in his book, Levine does not mention the case. In his article (see part 1), he only refers to it in the early 1990s.
Secondly, Levine was of the opinion that the stolen dies were cleaned by the forger with sandpaper or abrasive paste and re-engraved – the result being an improvement on the original design. However, Sasseen refutes this view.
According to Professor Malan, Sasseen told him that before the court case, he was handed one of the Van Niekerk pounds and asked if it was a forgery. He was also handed an original pond of 1900 and compared the two. As an expert on die-sinking, Sasseen immediately recognized the better-struck feathers on the eagle’s breast on the coin, which was suspected to be a forgery. The reason for this, he said, was that the coin was struck by using higher pressure than when the original coin was struck. (So the reason differs from Levine’s account who believed the dies were re-engraved).
A comparison of the 1900 forgery on the left and a genuine 1900 Kruger sovereign on the right. Note the flat breast of the eagle on the genuine coin.
Source: Kruger’s Gold – The Story of the Transvaal Gold during and after the Boer War by Francois Malan
Sasseen was then handed several cancelled Kruger Pond dies that were kept by the Natural Cultural and Open Air Museum (where Matthy Esterhuysen worked – see Part 1) and the Mint. The police were apparently looking for a tell-tale dot below the date. (According to Levine who calls it a ‘full stop’, the dot is situated to the right of the top of the flag-mast between the “P” and “O” of the word “Pond”). Tommy, however, was unable to find the dot on any of these original dies.
On closer inspection of one of the forgeries, he spotted marks on Kruger’s ear and beard. He concluded that the coin was struck with dies that were previously cancelled but the cancellation marks were then (unsuccessfully) removed. The reason for this assertion was that all the Kruger dies that were kept at the Museum and Mint, were cancelled by grooves that were grinded on them – see the example below from Professor Malan’s book.
So when the 1900 ponde were forged, the grooves were removed from the master dies, and the punches that were made from them were not supposed to show the original grooves. However, Tommy’s sharp eyes spotted some groove-remainder on the beard and inside President Kruger's ear hole.
The police then tried to find the original cancelled dies from which the punches for the forgeries were made. They were successful and provided Tommy with two cancelled dies that he concluded were indeed those used for the manufacture of the fake ponde. These dies were apparently kept in the safe of a high-ranking Mint official who gave them to the police.
Tommy concluded that the fake ponde was struck on new (modern) minting equipment that supplied much more pressure than the original Oom Paul press; thus the better-struck fake coins.
This assertion by Sasseen proved correct as Professor Malan writes that recently (in 2019) a 1900 die was offered for sale in an auction in Denmark by Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers. The picture from Malan’s book shows that the breast of the eagle has full feathers (not flat).
There is obviously the chance that this could be one of Van Niekerk’s dies, we simply do not know.
In Part 3 of The "Perfect" Forgery, court records, as well as newspaper and state historian reports are discovered as we follow the journey of the original 1900 Kruger sovereign dies. An unexpected and important turn of events corrects prominent South African numismatic articles and records. Part 3 to follow...
The following piece 'The 1900 “van Niekerk” Kruger Pond' was written upon request for the WCNS by well-known South African numismatist Glen Schoeman and added as an addendum to Part 2 - WCNS ed.
Addendum
The 1900 “van Niekerk” Kruger Pond
Compiled by Glenn Schoeman: Gold Reef City Mint
This is probably one of the most controversial coins that have ever been part of the numismatics produced in Southern Africa.
The “van Niekerk” 1900 1 Pond coin first made its appearance in about 1968, when excellent quality 1900 Ponden were being sold in Johannesburg.
My late father, Gerald Schoeman, a keen numismatist, was attending a “Transvaal Numismatic Society” meeting. While the meeting was in progress, a fellow TNS member and well-known coin dealer, Stan Kaplan, offered my father a beautiful example of a 1900 ZAR Pond. He stated that he had never before seen such a beautiful Kruger Pond. The spot gold price at the time was in the region of R 7.00 or R8.00 for a coin of that size, and the going rate of a good quality Pond was about R 80.00.
Most, if not all the coins offered until then, would probably have been graded as EF or AU, in Sheldon terms probably about AU 55 to AU 58. Stan offered the coin to my father at R60.00, which was the “bargain” of the day. My father bought two coins from Stan.
It was only later in the evening that my father noticed Gerrit van Niekerk trading with a number of other TNS members. Stan Kaplan had been offered these coins at R 40.00 each from van Niekerk, but he had to take at least 6 at a time. To make a profit of R 20.00 per coin was a massive margin on ZAR Ponden in those days. That was 25%, a very nice profit on gold.
It was only a few weeks later when more of these beautiful coins appeared for sale elsewhere in the country. Dr. Frank Mitchell, a prominent numismatist in Cape Town, immediately said that “if it seems too good to be true, it probably is”. Gerrit van Niekerk apparently had a considerable amount of these coins available for sale. The police were approached, and the investigation started.
Many numismatic experts were consulted, but no one could find any particular fault with the coins. They were just so perfect. When van Niekerk was asked to “please explain”, he had no hesitation in offering the authorities a few coins to test. It was suggested that the SA Mint should examine the coins for comment. At the time, the chief die sinker at the Mint was Tommy Sasseen.
Tommy examined the coins under a microscope for days and after a considerable in-depth investigation, Tommy concluded that the coins had definitely been struck by original dies. It was, therefore, not strictly correct to refer to them as “forgeries”. Even the gold that was used to mint these coins, was according to specification. There were a few coins that were a few milligrams underweight.
It must be taken into account that when the original coins were minted in 1900, the equipment to weigh the blanks was not as accurate and advanced as the equipment used in 1968. Even the assay or quantity of gold on the 22carat alloy used to make the coins was not as accurate as the specifications of coins made later. However, although many experts have commented that the colour and “feel” of the coins seemed to be slightly different to the “original” coins that were in circulation at the time, there was no substantial difference or evidence to prove that the “beautiful UNC coins” were forgeries.
An interesting twist to the entire investigation was about to change everything. There is an old proverb that says, “Hell has no wrath like a woman scorned”. Van Niekerk’s wife found out that her husband was having an affair with another woman. She decided to “spill the beans”. She told the authorities that, somehow, a pair of original dies had been stolen from the SA Mint. They were found in Europe, supposedly Italy, and that her husband had the ponden made in Europe.
Points of interest.
I was very fortunate to have known Tommy Sasseen very well, as he and I worked very closely on numerous projects over a period of more than 35 years. He was probably one of the best die sinkers the world has ever known. He was the person who used a defaced original ZAR Kruger 2 ½ Shilling die and made the first 1 ounce Krugerrand die from it. Tommy told me the whole story of how he had tested various aspects of the coin and how he arrived at his final conclusion.
Tommy and I had planned to write a paper explaining how the process had unfolded. However, while we were busy with the process in 2022, Tommy unfortunately passed away in November of that year.
The differences between the original and the “forgery.
The most obvious difference of the “forgery” is that the feathers on the chest of the eagle were perfectly detailed as were the feet and claws of the eagle. Kruger’s hair showed far better detail.
Some experts have identified about 7 differences, but the entire coin was far better quality. All these finer details were identified by Tommy Sasseen from the original dies, which he had access to.
The main reason that the original coins were not great quality was due to the fact that they were all minted on the “Oom Paul coin press. This press generates a maximum of 80 tons of pressure. The press that was used to mint the “forgeries” was probably capable of a higher pressure, somewhere around 150 tons. The coins could possibly also have been struck more than once, which would also explain why the coins were so much better quality. That was something that the “Oom Paul” press cannot do.
Apparently, the gold material that was used to mint these coins was old ponden that were worn down. This might account for the very slight difference in the mass of some of the coins. My thanks to Michael Kaplan for corroborating the above details and of course to the late Tommy Sasseen for passing on these interesting facts to me.
Glenn Schoeman - September 2024