Jul 14
So today I was identifying a few of our unidentified coins. As I was adding and choosing "South Africa" from the list, I noticed "South African Republic" was underneath. As I'm not a numismatic master, I wondered what the difference was. Was it the name of the previous regime or something else? I continued adding coins and when I stumbled onto one with the initials, "Z.A.R." I thought I should hop onto Google and see what that was. It turns out it was the answer to my question! ZAR is the South African Republic and Wikipedia has a detailed article covering the shortly lived nation. The short answer is the ZAR was an attempt by some Dutch and Afrikaans speaking peoples to cecede from the British Empire which was in control of a large portion of the area. Two wars later and the ZAR was reintegrated back into the Unions of South Africa which eventually becomes the South Africa we know today.

At the moment we only have 6 coins from the South African Republic. I thought I'd share the coin that started my early morning quest for knowledge:

The 1896 six-pence coin is 92.5% silver but it's a small coin so the actual weight is .084 ounces. I'm a fan of 100+ year old coins that I can snag in good condition for under $10. eBay has a few available here and you can also see the recent sold prices here. There are also other denominations from ZAR

Editor's Note: You might be wondering why it is "ZAR" instead of "SAR." The reason is because ZAR is the abbreviation for Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek, the Dutch spelling.

written by Nicholas


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