The “Perfect” Forgery
The Story of the Fake Kruger Pond of 1900
Part 3: The Court Cases and the Overseas Connections
Pierre H. Nortje (November 2024)
In an article by Dr. Jan Ploeger, a South African state historian, published in Historia in 1974, he mentions that the Berlin Mint manufactured 200 dies for 1900 ponde during the second half of 1899. Of these, 20 reached South Africa after the war had started, but was stolen by a member of the British consulate on a ship in Lourenco Marques, Mozambique.
The dies were stored in the cabin of person by the name of W. Grimm, a coin assayer working for the German Mint. While distracted, a person named C.H. Ford, a bank employee from Cape Town that was suspected of working on instructions of the British Consulate and the military intelligence, broke into Grimm’s sea chest in his room and stole the dies.
It would seem that the other 180 dies were not dispatched to South Africa, at least not during the war, although we have no absolute proof in this regard.
Ploeger wrote (Please note that F. Kraus was the Director of the ZAR Mint during 1899 but was replaced by Jules Alfred Perrin later that year) …
“Kraus then outlined his fate in Cape Town and London. There, he met the bank's branch manager, Mr. La Thangue, and asked him where the remaining 180 dies were. The branch manager replied that they were still in Hamburg. On February 3, 1900, Kraus inquired with the Royal Mint in Berlin whether the dies had been shipped and paid for. He learned that the consul-general of the South African Republic had requested that no further consignments be sent to Kraus”.
So, although the 180 dies were not sent to Kraus, they may have been smuggled into South Africa at a later stage during the war when Perrin was in control of the Mint.
Ploeger’s full article was published in October 2024 on the website of the Western Cape Numismatic Society.
Colorized picture (left) of Lourenco Marques harbor circa 1890s. Source: delagoabayworld. com. Picture right. The British Consulate in Lourenco Marques during the Boer War where the stolen dies were probably stored temporarily. Source: Cambridge Digital Library.
(As a matter of interest: - Numismatists like Becklake, Hern and others had in the past written that the reason the well-known overstamped “99” ponde dated 1898 were made, was because the 1899 dies did not reach Pretoria from Germany during the war years. This is most probably incorrect, because there is no evidence that any 1899 dies were made for any of the ZAR coin denominations).
If no 1900 dies reached Pretoria during the war years, with which dies were the 1900 ponde struck? According to Professor Francois Malan, in a letter from F.W. Reitz (State Secretary of the South African Republic at the time) to W.J. Leyds, the ZA Republic's special envoy in Brussels on 17 January 1900, Reitz stated that the company Delfos & Co in Pretoria was busy manufacturing dies for the Mint in case the next batch of dies from Berlin also fall in enemy hands. However, we do not know if the dies were delivered to the Mint, but if they were, they were probably the dies with which the Mint struck the 1900 issues.
Medal struck by Delfos & Co, owned by the two brothers Cornelis and Johann Delfos, for the inauguration of President Kruger for his 4th presidential term in 1898. Source: southafricanmedals.com
We must also add that according to documents we located in the National Archives in Den Haag, W.J. Leyds (see paragraph above) corresponded with a certain Bas(tiaan) Veth regarding coin dies during April/May 1900. Veth was an artist from Dordrecht in the Netherlands, and as a Boer sympathizer and secret agent for Leyds, coordinated the smuggling of some war time material from Europe into the ZAR. In his biography of Leyds, L.E. van Niekerk (1985: 258-259) describes some of the secret missions that Veth undertook for Leyds.
Derick Rabe, the webmaster of the Western Cape Numismatic Society, contacted Den Haag who supplied him with seventeen documents relating to correspondence between Veth and Leyds’ office. Veth was asked to contact the French Mint in Paris during April 1900 to obtain coin dies for the ZAR.
On 23 April 1900 Veth reported to Leyds’ office that he received two dies from the French Mint and handed them over to Mr. Pierson, the ZAR Consul General in France. (See picture above). It would seem that the French did not supply any further dies. We do not know if the two dies were sent to Pretoria.
Bastiaan Veth (1861 – 1944) shown on the left. Source: - Beeldbank.regionaalarchiefdordrecht.nl. Picture right, the French Mint (Monnaie de Paris). Source. monnaiedeparis.fr.
In the article written by Ploeger mentioned above, he says that on October 4, 1899, the National Bank in Pretoria telegraphed Kraus to order 200 dies for one-pound coins bearing the year 1900. We also know that eventually 788 000 ponde, dated 1900 (the figure most probably also includes some of the ponde with 1898 dates) were struck in Pretoria up to the beginning of June 1900 when the gold was taken by Smuts, the ZAR State Attorney from the Mint and sent to the Eastern Transvaal.
At this stage we are not sure where the dies for the 1900 ponde that were struck were sourced from, but we will come back to this issue at the end of this paper.
In part 1, we mentioned that in Levine’s article in the Journal of the Association of South African Numismatic Societies (Number 4, page 21) Van Niekerk is also credited, inter alia, with silver and gold half-pond forgeries, but provides no more information on the matter.
In May 2017, Heritage Auctions (Europe) sold two 1900 ponde struck in silver as lots 7344 and 7345 – see pictures below.
According to the descriptions of the lots the auctioneers note that the coins have smooth edges and weigh 4.79 grams. (The author is not sure if this is a misprint, because that is almost half the weight of a normal Krugerpond that weighs just under 8 grams).
The description further reads that “ …back in the 1980s just after the privatizing of the ‘Waarborg’ in Utrecht (an institution in the Netherlands responsible for official hallmarks and the official watchdog over gold and silver content in all objects, coins etc.), the former general manager sold an original die of the famous Paul Kruger 1 pond 1900. This original die was sold at a coin show in the Netherlands to an English dealer and he sold the die to someone or some institution in South Africa. Not long ago the former Waarborg-official died, and his wife sold all his coins and equipment. In the estate were two pieces of unknown proof silver ponds from the year 1900. In the 1970´s a Mr. van Niekerk unlawfully obtained a set of dies from his son in law who worked at the South African Mint. He was known to produce forgery gold coins in Italy. These coins are of superb quality and show a sharp full breast of feathers on the eagle. It is possible that Van Niekerk also produced these silver proof specimens from reworked dies and that they ended up at the ‘Waarborg’ together with these dies.”
In August 2024, Bassani’s Auction House in Johannesburg, sold the following coin described as a “1900 Kruger Pond Struck on Cancelled Dies in Copper”. It is slabbed by SANGS.
What is strange about the copper coin (certified as a “pattern” by SANGS) is that the cancellation mark on the obverse and reverse is not a groove, but is raised above the surface of the coin. This mean that the cancellation mark(s) was present on the die with which the coin was struck with, and not applied after it was struck.
The crude design reminds one of the well-known Kruger Pond brass tokens (Hern number 462 and Laidlaw number 0210 – see Laidlaw’s picture below from southafricanmedals.com). However, the brass tokens known that are dated, all carry the date 1896 and not the 1900 date.
With the help of Derick Rabe, webmaster of the Western Cape Numismatic Society, the author was able to access some references to the Van Niekerk court papers.
Based on these, the (first) court case was held on 21 and 22 January 1975 in Pretoria with three accused standing in the dock, being Van Niekerk, his aunt (Mrs. Van Niekerk) and a certain J.J. Smit with last mentioned being found not guilty and acquitted. The author could not get access to the full court papers, and was informed by a law expert that lower court cases are not recorded on paper, only audio tapes. However, just before this paper was published, a newspaper article was found that referred to the case.
The Rand Daily Mail of 23 January 1975 published an article entitled “Kruger Pound, a forgery, court told”. (Source: Francois Malan)
The names of the accused are given as Gerritt (note the spelling) Jacobus van Niekerk, his aunt, Mrs Queenie van Niekerk and a Messina farmer, Mr Jurgen Jacobus Smit. They were charged with fraud, alternatively theft, in that they sold what is alleged a forged Kruger pound of 1900 to a police officer for R50.
It further states that Mr. R. Levin (note error – his initial should be “E” for “Elias”), a numismatic expert, testified that the coin’s mass differed 3% from an original coin, whereas Kruger ponde should show no more than a 0.038% variance. This is very strange, as in his book in 1974, he said that the mass variances of the four forgeries that he tested was 0.65%, +0.351%, +0.038% and 0.526% that is not near the 3% he mentioned in the court case.
Lieutenant Petrus Myburg told the court that after he bought the coin, he became suspicious when he found its catalogue value was R135, R85 more than the R50 he paid Van Niekerk. After the report was made by the police forensic laboratory the accused was arrested.
The defence called Dr. D.W. Annandale as a witness who told the court that he studied dies kept in storage at the National Museum of Cultural History in Pretoria. He found 27 dies which differed from the one kept at the South African Mint.
“The eagle on at least nine of these had a rounded chest and clearly lined claws, as does the alleged forgery”. (It is not clear if the nine dies Annandale referred to were dated 1900 but one must assume so).
Mr. W.S. van As, president of the SA Numismatic Society (Van As was actually the president of the Transvaal Numismatic Society at the time) said in evidence that he issued a certificate of authenticity for 85 coins which Van Niekerk told him were bought in 1958 (should probably read 1968) from a foreigner, who in turn bought them from a Swiss. The certificate was later withdrawn when members of the society expressed doubts about the coins.
The article ends by saying that the charge against the third accused, JJ Smit, was withdrawn and the case was postponed to January 31 for judgement.
The author could not find anything on the court proceedings on the 31st of January, but we know that the state’s request to reopen the case against Van Niekerk and his aunt, was postponed to 14 March 1975, but due to the Van Niekerk’s advocate withdrawing from the case, it was again postponed to 25 March 1975. In the meantime, on 14 March 1975, the state prosecutor supplied the names of eleven witnesses to the defence that will be called if the state decides to reopen the case.
The state prosecutor told the court that new information, not presented at the first case, has come to light that will have a meaningful outcome on the matter. However, this would not affect Mrs van Niekerk, and she was acquitted. (There were further hearings on 14 November 1975 and 2 February 1976 with judgement on 18 February 1976).
The "new information" refers to the fact that when the state initially approached the Museum (it is not clear to which museum it refers to) to obtain the stamps, the curator denied that such stamps existed, but later the stamps were indeed found in the museum. The state prosecutor was of the opinion that a forensic investigation on these dies should prove Van Niekerk's guilt.
Van Niekerk's legal representatives opposed the state's application and requested that Van Niekerk be found not guilty and the case dismissed. It would appear that the request was granted, and there are no specific references to whether Van Niekerk was found guilty or sentenced. (According to Levine, the judge postponed his judgement for 5 years).
From the court papers (regarding the state’s request to reopen the case) Van Niekerk was owner of “Pretoria Muntversamelaars (Edms.) Bpk” and “Connoisseur Kuns en Antiek (Edms.) Bpk”.
Picture left: Pocket Guide to S.A. Coin Values (circa 1971) published by Gerhard van Niekerk’s company. When he retired the premises was taken over by Claude V Malan Stamps & Coins in circa 1976. The picture on the right is an advertisement in the publication of the 5th South African Numismatic Convention held in Johannesburg in April 1974.
It is noted that before March 25, 1975, and in reply to a query from the applicant's lawyer, the investigating officer, Lt. Myburgh, provided him with a list of potential State witnesses who were, among others, “…all customs officials and office bearers of the overseas Standard Bank, all employees of the Hotel Mediterania, Milan, and all employees and curators of museums in Rome, Italy”.
Possible Turn of Events
The following is pure speculation by the author, based on the information we have at this stage.
In the second half of the 1960s, Van Niekerk illegally obtained dies for a 1900 pond from someone working for either the South African Mint or the National Cultural Museum in Pretoria, but probably the SA Mint Museum. According to Heritage Auctions (Europe) the culprit was Van Niekerk’s son-in-law.
From these dies, a skilled artisan manufactured stamps for striking gold Kruger ponde dated 1900. The master dies were then placed back in the museum. (In practice this means that the dies were never permanently stolen, only temporarily removed). However, it is important to remember that if the nine dies that Dr Annandale referred to in the first court case that showed the eagle with “a rounded chest and clearly lined claws” were indeed dated 1900, there would have been no need for the forger to rework the dies.
The stamps were taken to Milan in Italy. With gold that was bought, possibly in Europe and possibly in the form of 22ct gold sovereigns, via a transaction facilitated by Standard Bank, a number of fake 1900 ponde were struck on “modern” machinery.
According to the NGC chat board (World Coins Catalog) a private mint, named “Numismatica Italiana" operated in Milan during that period. The company was founded in 1926 by Carlo Zucchi and Leopoldo Gori. The following is a gold 1000 Dinara (KM# 54) from Yugoslavia, struck in Milan in 1968, the same probable year in which the Van Niekerk fakes were struck.
Source: NGCcoin.com
Some of the forgers probably stayed in the Hotel Mediterania in Milan, Italy. A hotel by the name of Mediterraneo still operates there. It would be interesting to know how far the hotel was then situated from the private mint mentioned above. The hotel is currently run by the Una chain of hotels. It is situated in Via Ludovico Muratori 14, Milan, Italy.
(It is a mystery why “employees and curators of museums in Rome, Italy” were listed as potential witnesses for the state).
Source: topmilanhotels.com
The ponde were then brought back to South Africa and sold by Van Niekerk who said that they were obtained in Europe as part of the “Kruger Millions” that he discovered there.
Quite as a coincidence, a hoard of Kruger gold ponde and half-ponde, dubbed the “lost hoard” was discovered in a vault in Switzerland a couple of years ago. It is thought that the coins, 910 in total, were sent to Europe during or just after the Anglo Boer War. Included in the hoard were 37 ponde of 1900. One can safely assume, that none of them were struck showing an eagle with a full breast of feathers!
Some final comments
Some experts, as we have quoted in this paper, are of the opinion that the original 1900 Ponde were struck with machines that did not apply enough pressure resulting in the “softly” struck eagle on the reverse.
Eli Levine (see Part 1) said that the Van Niekerk forgeries must have been struck with original dies which probably were 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 does not mention that he believed that there were problems with the original press machines.
Tommy Sasseen (see Part 2) agreed that the stolen dies were reworked and believed that the reason for the original ponde showing flat-breasted eagles, was the inability of the presses to apply enough pressure. Glenn Schoeman agrees with this assertion.
This leaves us with the following question: -
We know that the Pretoria Mint was closed from 1 January 1898 until 30 September 1899 and that between 1 October 1899 and the beginning of June 1900, approximately 925 000 ponde were struck bearing the dates 1898 and 1900. These coins were all struck with exactly the same machinery being the three “Oom Paul” Presses made by the Berlin-based Ludwig Loewe & Co.
Why then are there no 1898 gold ponde recorded showing flat-breasted eagles on any of the almost 1000 uncirculated coins that have been graded by NGC and PCGS of this date? If the machines were malfunctioning, the problem could hardly have occurred after the last coin dated 1898 was struck and the first 1900 issue was produced the following day. And all three machines having the exact same problem from that day onward ?
A possible answer could be that because the Mint had only a limited number of 1900 dies in their possession, the minters deliberately lowered the pressure of the machines to prolong the use of the dies. Or, possibly, the 1900 dies did not fit perfectly into the presses and the contact with the planchets were not fully made.
Lastly, although we have no proof of this, there is a possibility that the dies that were used to strike the Ponde bearing the date 1900 were made by Delfos & Co in Pretoria to inferior standard, and if so, the dies were indeed the problem. However, we must add that flat breasted 1900 dies have never been recorded.
We know for a fact that dies of 1900 exist showing full-breasted eagles (pictures of them are shown in this paper and Dr. Annandale stated in court that nine of them were kept by the National Museum of Cultural History in Pretoria). We believe these to have been manufactured by the Berlin Mint but probably never reached Pretoria during the war.
So where does this leave Van Niekerk?
We do not know if all the dies kept by the museum were cancelled, but if some were not, Van Niekerk would probably have stolen some of those as then there would have been no need to rework the dies. As far as we could find, Van Niekerk never confessed in court of his crime, and there might be a possibility that he acquired the dies overseas, but then Sasseen’s assessment of reworked dies would be incorrect.
What we do know for a fact, is that before the late 1960s, no full-feathered 1900 ponde were known to exist, and they only started to make their appearance after Van Niekerk entered the scene, so he was undoubtedly guilty of selling ponde that were only struck more than half a century after the Pretoria Mint was closed in early June 1900.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Glenn Schoeman for his input and other information he shared after talks he had with Cliff van Rensburg. Also, Professor Francois Malan from the University of Pretoria and Derick Rabe, webmaster of the Western Cape Numismatic Society for their valuable assistance and input. Lastly a word of thanks to Claude V. Malan to whom the author personally spoke to whilst writing this paper. At 82, Claude is one of the last persons still alive that knew Gerhard van Niekerk fairly well.