It’s been out for a while but apparently some people still haven’t seen the new five Rand coin.

I thought I’d put up some photos of it for their benefit since no one else apparently has bothered:

New and old R5 coins (1MB )
Front close-up of new R5 coin (543kb)
Side close-up of new R5 coin (76kb)
Close-up of security features on R5 face (72kb)
New R5 versus GBP 2 Pound (1.1MB )

The advantages of the new coin are the four features in the coin that make forging it much harder. On the face of the coin the ‘SARB’ franking is quite small and therefore iincredibly difficult to immitate without expensive machinery. The coin also clearly consists of two different parts or metals.

The face also intentionally has the ‘5’ and ‘Rand’ crossing over the seam of the join of the inner and outer rings of the coin. Close inspection of the seam also appears to hint that perhaps the parts are minted separately and then joined. Again, making the respective parts of the ‘5’ and ‘Rand’ also line up properly would be another difficult task to copy.

Lastly, the side of the coin has a depression in running the diameter of the coin and with the very small words ‘SARB R5’ pressed in at intervals around the coin. Again, this is highly difficult to copy without expensive machinery and very technical skills. A fact demonstrated by a comparison of the widely forged old R5 coin when placed side by side the new one.

The new R5 coin itself is a bit smaller and lighter than the British 2 Pound coin as well, and both appear to have different security features in them, while the composition of metal used in the inner and outer rings is reveresed for the GBP 2 Pound coin.