South African pound

The pound sterling became the standard currency of the Cape of Good Hope colony in 1825 following an imperial order-in-council that was issued for the purpose of introducing the sterling coinage into all the British colonies. British coins then replaced the Dutch currency. Before a unified South Africa, many authorities issued coins and banknotes in their own pound, equivalent to sterling.

The Transvaal Republic, the Boer state that in 1902 was to become Transvaal Colony, issued notes from 1867 to 1902 and coins from 1892 to 1902. The gold coins were denominated in pond rather than pounds.

In 1920, the Treasury issued gold certificate notes. The following year, the South African Reserve Bank was established as the sole note issuing authority. Coins were issued from 1923. The South African pound remained equal to the pound sterling throughout its existence, except for a short period following the abandonment of the gold standard in the United Kingdom in 1931. When the United Kingdom abandoned the gold standard in September 1931, Canada quickly followed suit because it had been under exactly the same pressure as the United Kingdom. The contraction of the money supply in the United States had been causing large amounts of gold bullion to flow west across the Atlantic Ocean, and south into the United States. The situation in South Africa was different, because gold exportation to London was a major business. According to Jan Smuts in his biography, the Nationalists specifically wanted to make a point of not automatically following suit with the United Kingdom, and they perceived that they were in a strong position to do so. For the United Kingdom and Canada, an outflow of gold was seen as a flight of gold, whereas for South Africa the same was seen as a profitable enterprise. The effect of South Africa's continuing adherence to the gold standard did not however turn out as Hertzog might have hoped. The South African pound rose dramatically in value against the pound sterling, and this virtually crippled South Africa's gold export industry overnight. By 1933, Hertzog abandoned the gold standard and the South African pound returned to parity with the pound sterling. The relief was felt almost immediately.

The South African pound was replaced by the rand on 14 February 1961 at a rate of 2 rand = 1 pound. That rate continued until the Sterling devaluation in 1967 when South Africa did not follow suit.

The government of the Cape Colony issued a 1-pound note in 1835 and a 20-pound note in 1834. Between 1869 and 1872, the ZAR in Transvaal issued notes for 6 pence, 1, 2½, 5 and 10 shillings, 1, 5 and 10 pounds. The National Bank of the ZAR issued 1 pound notes between 1892 and 1893. During the Second Boer War, government notes were issued in denominations of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 pounds.

In 1920, Treasury gold certificate notes were issued in denominations of 1, 5, 100, 1,000 and 10,000 pounds, in Afrikaans and English script. From 1921, the South African Reserve Bank took over the issuance of paper money, introducing notes for 10 shillings, 1, 5, 20 and 100 pounds. 20 pound notes were last issued in 1933, with 10 pound notes added in 1943.

All banknotes were bilingual in English and Afrikaans. From 1948, two variants of each note were issued, one with English written first and the other with Afrikaans written first.

• Coins of the South African pound
• South African rand
• Coins of the South African rand
• Economy of South Africa