This year, the South African Mint (SA Mint) will commemorate the Chinese horoscope’s sentiment for 2020, aligning the designs of some of its prized collectable coins with “The Year of the Metal Rat”.

The horoscope considers 2020 a year of new beginnings and renewal.

Every year, the SA Mint marks memorable events and anniversaries that capture the South African nation, by striking these stories onto coins.

Last year, it brought out the SA25 coin series to commemorate 25 years of South Africa’s democracy.

One of the coins that the SA Mint will circulate this year is a R2 coin that was the product of a competition that ran last year.

The SA Mint had invited members of the public to submit designs for the reverse of the new R2 coin, depicting a right from South Africa’s Bill of Rights.

The winning design had been selected and the coin will enter circulation during the course of the year.

Numismatists will be able to add another example of South African ingenuity to their collection with the launch of the sterling silver crown and tickey coins featuring the Retinal cryoprobe – a local invention that revolutionised cataract surgery.

South African doctor, pioneering inventor and biomedical engineer Selig Percy Amoils is credited for the invention of the cryoprobe, which is a pen-like instrument that is inserted into a cut in the eye to remove a cataract with no risk of destroying healthy adjacent tissue. This technology was used on former President Nelson Mandela. 

The SA Mint had introduced the “South African Inventions” theme on the crown and tickey coin series in 2016, to highlight globally relevant inventions and firsts by South Africans.

Last year’s coin featured Pratley Putty, the world’s first epoxy adhesive invented by South African engineer George Pratley. It was used by the National American Space Agency aboard its Ranger moon-landing craft some 50 years back.

Additionally, the SA Mint will launch two new Big 5 coin designs this year, following the series’ introduction last year at World Money Fair. This year will feature the rhino and the leopard. The lion and the elephant graced the preceding coins.

The SA Mint will also this year repeat the silver Natura coin, exclusively in silver, and it will feature the Coelophysis Rhodesiensis, a diminutive, bi-pedal carnivore which preyed on small animals and mammals [in what is now South Africa and Zimbabwe] between the late Triassic to early Jurassic period.

Meanwhile, the SA Mint announced the design of the iconic Krugerrand remained unchanged this year, going on 50 years of its existence. The obverse features the bust of President Paul Kruger, while the reverse, originally designed and engraved by Coert Steynberg, depicts a prancing springbok, a well-known South African symbol.

The Krugerrand in 2020 stars individually, as well as in the existing four and five fractional sets available. It is also available in 1 oz and 2 oz both gold and silver and in bullion and proof quality.

Finally, featuring on the 2020 sterling-silver colour coin range are the flowers Protea repens (Sugarbush) and Serruria florida (Blushing Bride), and birds Coccopygia melanotis (Swee Waxbill) and Ploceus capensis (Cape Weaver).

The quartet of coins which seek to celebrate South Africa’s rich flora and fauna are the subject of this year’s series and are found in the Cape Winelands Biosphere Reserve.