How the Veldpond was made

The burghers began by making dies carrying the new design - the letters "Z A R" and the date 1902. For in the nature of things it had to be simple. 

Next these dies had to be cut by minute chisels of toughened steel from metal of softer quality. Although this was successfully done, the next stage of trying to anneal or harden them by plunging them into cold water immediately cracked them. A second, a third and a fourth attempt proved equally unsuccessful. Not until the sixth effort was this obstacle overcome.

 

Rummaging about the Republicans discovered a machine for hand punching, rather like an old fashioned office letter copying-press. Into this were fitted the dies, underneath which were placed strips of soft gold rolled to the correct thickness. 

To the delight of the experimenters quite passable impressions were secured.

The next stage was to prepare suitable blank discs. As the improvised coin was inclined to "spread", rather like a pancake squeezed to hard Pienaar*, the Mintmaster, devised an ingenious rim which fitted so well on the blank coin that when the press was brought to bear upon it it even produced a kind of milling round the edges. 

The result was a very neatly finished coin, the "Veld Pond".

Not that all the troubles had yet been overcome, for much of the gold from the mines (at Pilgrim's Rest) was impure and had to be refined and toughened. It was rolled and re-rolled, annealed and re-annealed, but still the right quality could not be attained. To crown everything the mint ran out of chemicals. 

Not until that it was discovered that Sublimate of Mercury (used as an antiseptic in the ambulances of the Boers) would do the trick was the hurdle surmounted With no mechanical assistance available, every blank had to be measured out singly. Hundreds were badly struck and melted down afresh, but the result was a success.