DD17: The Krugerrand, the Gold Coin With No Number

Look at a Krugerrand and you will find a president, a springbok, a date and a weight. What you will not find is a number of rand. The South African coin struck since 1967 is legal tender, yet it has never carried a face value, because its makers wanted its worth to be the gold and nothing else. That one decision made it the most successful gold coin of its age, and then made it the first gold coin a superpower banned.

A coin for the man in the street

The idea did not come from a mint. The South African Mint's own history of the Krugerrand says the coin "was the brainchild of the South African Chamber of Mines". The moment was deliberate: "When the gold standard was under pressure in the 1960s and a steady process of deregulations took place in the gold market, the Chamber of Mines saw and developed an opportunity for the 'man on the street' to own gold."

The first coin was struck at the South African Mint on 3 July 1967, an event that, in the Mint's words, "took place with little ceremony." The design was borrowed from the past. The obverse portrait of President Paul Kruger was "modelled by die-engraver Otto Schultz and struck from the original die used in 1892 for the historic Kruger half-crown coin." The springbok on the reverse was the work of the sculptor Coert Steynberg, "first used on the 1947 5-shilling coin." The name joins Kruger to the rand, which the Mint notes "is also linked to the Witwatersrand", the ridge that produced so much of the world's gold.

One ounce, and no face value

Here is the invention. The Mint records that the Krugerrand "contained exactly one troy ounce of fine-gold and was a world first in that there was no denomination on the coin so that its value would be linked to the daily gold price." Every coin before it had a number on it, set by a government. The Krugerrand carried a quantity of metal instead.

It is not pure gold. It is 22 carat, the same standard as the British sovereign. Richard Collocott of Rand Refinery, speaking for the coin's fiftieth anniversary in 2017, explained: "The gold coins are manufactured from 22 carat gold. The alloy material is copper, and was chosen to enhance hardness and therefore durability." Our own arithmetic follows: if one troy ounce, 31.10 grams, is 22 parts in 24, the whole coin weighs about 33.9 grams. The copper is why a Krugerrand looks a little warmer in colour than a pure gold coin.

The South African Reserve Bank still treats it exactly as its makers intended. On its page for gold coins purchased from the public, the Bank lists Krugerrands among the coins it buys as legal tender, and says it "will only pay for the gold content of any Krugerrand". There is no premium for age or rarity. The coin is worth its metal, no more and no less.

The world's coin, then the world's target

It worked. The Mint says the Krugerrand "dominated the world's coin market over the next nine years". Fractional coins of a half, a quarter and a tenth of an ounce followed in 1980. By the Mint's 2017 count, "more than 53 million ounces of gold (over 60 million pieces) have been sold in the form of Krugerrands".

Success made it a symbol, and a symbol could be refused. On 26 July 1985 the United Nations Security Council, in Resolution 569, urged member states to adopt measures against South Africa's government, listing second among them the "Prohibition of the sale of krugerrands and all other coins minted in South Africa". It was adopted by thirteen votes to none, with the United Kingdom and the United States abstaining.

Ten weeks later the United States acted anyway. Executive Order 12535, signed by President Reagan on 1 October 1985, ordered "that the importation into the United States of South African Krugerrands is prohibited effective 12:01 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time October 11, 1985." A year later Congress wrote it into statute. Section 301 of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 states: "No person, including a bank, may import into the United States any South African krugerrand or any other gold coin minted in South Africa or offered for sale by the Government of South Africa." The President vetoed the Act; the House overrode him on 29 September 1986 and the Senate on 2 October, by two thirds.

Rivals in the gap

Other mints were already moving. The Royal Canadian Mint recalls that its Gold Maple Leaf "began in 1979 as a trial project to transform Canadian gold into pure gold investment coins". In Britain, as we told in Britannia, from Hadrian to the hundred pound coin, the Royal Mint Museum records that in 1987 the Chancellor issued a new bullion coin "to counter the growing popularity of the South African Krugerrand." The South African Mint's own account is candid: during the sanctions years, "other mints elsewhere took the opportunity to issue their own bullion coins."

The ban did not last. On 10 July 1991 President George Bush signed Executive Order 12769, having concluded that South Africa's government "has taken all of the steps specified in section 311(a) of the Act", so that title III, the section carrying the coin ban, had terminated.

Legal tender, but not sterling

For a British owner there is one more twist. HMRC's Capital Gains Manual at CG78305 says "Coins which are currency but not sterling, for example Krugerrands, are chargeable assets", while sovereigns from 1837 and Britannia gold coins are exempt as sterling. The coin with no number is treated as money in South Africa and as an asset in Britain. That is HMRC's guidance as published, not advice on anyone's own position.

What the missing number tells us

Our markets feed read $4,166.10 an ounce at 07:06 UTC on 17 October 2026, or about £100.48 a gram. At that price the gold in one Krugerrand is worth about £3,125. Nobody had to revalue it, reissue it or print a new figure on it. The coin was designed in 1967, four years before the dollar's link to gold was cut, as told in the night the window closed, and it simply carried on meaning what it always meant: one ounce.

A face value is a promise made by a government. The Krugerrand made no promise. It was banned, boycotted and outcompeted, and still the metal inside it never lost its standing. That is the quietest argument for gold there is.

Every piece we sell is hallmarked, or its exemption is evidenced. Read about the sovereign, read the marks yourself with our free identifier, see what is on the shelf, or sell with Chapman Gold. Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice.