One coin. Ten chapters. Endless stories.The Krugerrand Saga
A president who never gave up. A treasure lost for a hundred years. Silver from the bottom of the Indian Ocean — and a handshake that changed the world. This one coin carries all of it. Welcome to the greatest story ever minted.
10 chapters — from 1874 to todayOver 60 million ounces of goldSpecial mintages from just 5 pieces
1967 · bullion · reverse proof — three generations of a legend
1967Birth year of the world’s first bullion coin
60 Mio.+ounces of gold sold since 1967
90 %global gold coin market share in 1980
5pieces — the smallest special mintage of all time
The saga in ten chapters
1874
Prologue · 1874
The dream a parliament shattered
Pretoria, 1873. President Thomas François Burgers has a vision far ahead of his time: his country’s own gold coin, struck from the gold of its own soil. Without asking parliament, he ships 300 ounces to Birmingham. 837 coins come back — the Burgers Pond, South Africa’s first gold coin. There will never be more.
The Volksraad is furious. The coin is rejected, never enters circulation and ends up as jewellery and curiosity. The dream seems dead. But ideas do not die — they wait.
93 years later, Burgers’ failed dream becomes the most successful bullion coin in world history. And 150 years later, in 2024, the Burgers Pond returns — as a privy mark on the Krugerrand. The archetype meets the legend, exclusively at Kettner worldwide.
First strike 1967 — with the original SA Mint paper pouch
Chapter One · 1967
The birth of a legend
3 July 1967. At the South African Mint, a coin falls from the press unlike anything before: not a collectible, not currency — but gold you can hold, for everyone. One ounce, wrapped in a coin. The Krugerrand is born, and with it an entirely new idea: the bullion coin.
On the obverse: Paul Kruger, portrayed by Otto Schultz. On the reverse: Coert Steynberg’s springbok, the national animal in full stride. Plus the famous alloy — 916.67 gold, hardened with copper, giving the coin its unmistakable reddish glow. Connoisseurs recognise a Krugerrand by its colour before they even read the inscription.
What follows is unprecedented: by 1980 the Krugerrand accounts for 90 percent of the global gold coin market. When the USA imposes an embargo in 1985, it becomes a true myth — the forbidden coin everyone still wants.
Some coins are measured in ounces. The Krugerrand is measured in history.
It is South Africa’s greatest treasure legend: as the Boer War is lost in 1900, the Transvaal government moves gold out of Pretoria — and part of it vanishes without a trace. Generations of treasure hunters chase the “Kruger Millions”. In vain.
More than a century later, a vault door opens in Switzerland that no one had touched for decades. Inside: an old money bag, and within it gold Ponds from 1893 to 1900 — first moved to the Netherlands, brought to Switzerland before the Second World War and then simply forgotten. The numismatic world reverently speaks of the “Lost Hoard”.
The South African Mint buys the entire hoard at auction, has every coin certified by NGC and pairs it with a 1/4 oz Krugerrand bearing the “Lost Hoard” mint mark. Only 677 sets. We were able to offer the final pieces — they sold out in no time.
When history meets gold, speed decides. The following chapters show which rarities you can still secure today.
50
Chapter Three · 2017
50 years — and three premieres at once
For the golden jubilee in 2017, the South African Mint does what it never did in 50 years: it strikes the Krugerrand in silver for the first time — and in platinum for the first time, limited to 2,017 pieces. Overnight, the silver Krugerrand becomes one of the most collected silver coins in the world.
And then there is the monument: a Krugerrand of 50 ounces of pure gold, a good one and a half kilograms, mintage of 50 pieces worldwide. Plus vintage sets with the 1967 first strike and book sets limited to 50 — 2017 is the year one coin becomes a dynasty.
One of these 50 monuments rests in our vault in Villingen-Schwenningen today — waiting for the one collector who will carry its story on.
6 June 1944: the liberation of Europe begins in Normandy. 8 May 1945: after almost six years, the guns fall silent. These are dates everyone knows — and behind them stand millions of individual fates. The Krugerrand honours them with its most moving privy marks.
For the 75th anniversary of D-Day, exactly 200 gold coins were issued in 2019. For Victory in Europe Day 2020, only 150. And for the 80th anniversary of the end of the war in 2025, the South African Mint dared its smallest series ever: the 1 oz gold coin with a mintage of 80 — one coin for every year of peace.
The guardian of the national park that bears his name
Chapter Five · 1825–2025
The man whose face turned to gold
Born on 10 October 1825, on the Great Trek in an ox wagon at nine, president of the South African Republic at 58: Paul Kruger is one of Africa’s defining figures. He founds the reserve that becomes the Kruger National Park — and his country sits on the largest gold deposits on earth.
That his portrait of all faces has graced the world’s most famous gold coin since 1967 is more than a footnote — it is the bond of man, land and metal that no other coin can tell.
For his 200th birthday in 2025, the Krugerrand bears the privy mark “1825” — tiny, razor-sharp, unmissable for connoisseurs. The 1 oz gold coin: only 200 pieces worldwide.
The Germany series: from the Kaiser to the chancellor of peace
In 1896, Kaiser Wilhelm II sends a telegram to Pretoria — a gesture to Paul Kruger that travels the world and ties a bond between Germany and South Africa. 130 years later, the South African Mint honours this bond with a world premiere: the first German motif in Krugerrand history.
And the story continues: the second German motif belongs to Willy Brandt — and to 1990, the year Nelson Mandela walked free, Germany became one and two nations cast off their chains. Both series: exclusive to Kettner Edelmetalle, worldwide.
First German motif
Kaiser Wilhelm II.
1896
The Kruger telegram as a privy mark: the premiere’s gold editions were nearly sold out within months — the 5 oz coin with a mintage of 5 is the smallest Krugerrand mintage of all time.
Mandela walks free, Germany becomes one — and Willy Brandt extends his hand to both. The privy mark “19 · Brandt · 90” commemorates the year of freedom. Gold set: only 250 pieces worldwide.
23 November 1942, Indian Ocean. The SS Tilawa is en route from Bombay to Durban — carrying 950 people and 60 tonnes of silver bars. Then the torpedoes of submarine I-29 strike. 281 people die. The ship sinks to a depth of 2,500 metres, taking the British Crown’s silver with it.
For 75 years the “Titanic of the Indian Ocean” rests in darkness before modern salvage technology achieves the impossible. In 2025, the South African Mint strikes a Krugerrand with the Tilawa privy mark from this very recovered silver — every coin literally a raised treasure.
Our allocation sold out quickly. Whoever owns one holds world history that lay on the ocean floor for seven decades.
Dawn over the bushveld: in the tall grass, a lion raises its head. Since 2020 the Krugerrand has brought the Big Five to its side — lion, elephant, rhino, buffalo and leopard, in privy mark sets uniting two South African icons in one case. And high above the savannah, the eagles of the “Odyssey of the Sky” series trace their circles.
In 2026 a newcomer sprints into the pack: the cheetah of the African Range — zero to a hundred in three seconds, frozen in high relief, every sinew, every muscle visible. Africa’s wilderness, coin by coin.
In 2024 the South African Mint dared a world first: the Krugerrand in reverse proof — the motif mirror-polished, the field velvet matte. Turn the coin in the light and springbok and Kruger light up where the mirror usually lies. A reversal of 57 years of minting tradition, limited to 500 pieces — and every new edition has sold out in no time since.
Add the piedforts — twice as thick as a regular ounce, two ounces of gold in the classic format — and the coin fair strikes with Table Mountain, the Johannesburg skyline or Durban in the privy mark. Small mintages, big stage: this is where the mint shows what it can do.
Many chapters on this page exist only here: Burgers Pond, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Willy Brandt — editions born from a long-standing, trusted partnership between the South African Mint and Kettner Edelmetalle. As official partner, we bring these series to market exclusively, worldwide.
„What is sold out here is sold out everywhere.“
The world premieres of this partnership
Burgers Pond Privy Mark
The archetype as a privy mark · exclusive to Kettner
2024
Kaiser Wilhelm II. Privy Mark
First German motif · exclusive to Kettner
2026
Willy Brandt Privy Mark
Second German motif · exclusive to Kettner
2026
✦ Official partnership ✦
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„Striking history together.“
Sole worldwide distribution of the exclusive editions
Ten chapters lie behind you.
The next one is yours to write.
Since 1967 the Krugerrand has passed from hand to hand, from generation to generation — as heirloom, as security, as history you can hold. Imagine for a moment who will hold your coin in fifty years and what story you will send along with it. Every special edition on this page is such a chapter — some remain available only while the last pieces last.
