Not many collectors are fully aware of how many of the coins in this series were smelted 40+ years ago! If they did know many of these coins would be priceless. Read on for the facts.

Looking at the mintage figures for any denomination & year in this series it does not seem like there are any exceedingly rare items save for the obvious ones such as the 1931 silver denominations but looks can be very deceiving, none more so than in this particular instance.

To understand why this is so one needs to go back to 1951 when the SA Mint changed the silver content in all its silver coinage - threepences, sixpences, shillings, 2 shillings, 2.5 shillings & 5 shillings - from 80% silver & 20% copper to 50% silver & 50% copper. This change was immediately followed by a general withdrawal of all 80% silver content coinage from circulation. All silver coins from 1923 to 1950 that were received by the banks were withdrawn & sent to the mint for smelting. This withdrawal of coinage continued until 1965 & the total number of coins withdrawn & smelted during these 14 years is documented at 59,751,581 coins out of a total of 108,301,124 coins minted (this figure excludes threepences as none were withdrawn during this period). This is just over 55% of the total mintage gone forever!

In 1965 the withdrawals & smeltings continued only they now incorporated all the silver coinage from 1923 to 1964 which meant that both 80% & 50% silver content coinage was being smelted. This continued until 1968 and the total silver content coins smelted in this period is documented as 129,858,400 (excluding threepences & 2 1/2 cents coins) out of a total mintage of 186,486,106 (this figure takes into account the reduction of 80% coins from the initial smelting period) which is a whopping 70% of the remaining mintage gone forever!

Effectively 77% of all silver coins - excluding threepences & 2 1/2 cents - minted from 1923 to 1964 were smelted over 40 years ago. This surely would make one reconsider the level of scarcity attributable to these coins and therefore the values applicable too!

Unfortunately the mint never documented the exact number of coins smelted for a particular year & denomination but they did document the total coins smelted per denomination in each withdrawal period & it is here that one can easily begin to estimate & understand why I can safely claim that several hidden rarities exist today.

I shall explain in detail in my next journal which should follow in a week or so.

Cheers

Alex