Obverse of South African Krugerrand

South African Krugerrand
The krugerrand was introduced in 1967 by the South African Mint, as a neat way to market gold to investors. The concept was quite simple, a legal tender gold coin containing an ounce of fine gold, to be sold by the mint at a low premium (amount) over the spot gold price, which could then be bought and sold at relatively small 'spreads'. It would be easy to know the approximate value of a krugerrand because gold tends to be quoted per ounce. Coins which are or were legal tender often have preferential ease of import, and lower or nil duty and sales tax rates. This simple concept worked so well that it was copied by a number of other countries, but worldwide krugerrands remain the most popular one ounce bullion coin.
We see many mis-spellings of the word krugerrand, but its name is derived from Paul Kruger, the first president of the Republic of South Africa whose head appears on the coins, and the word rand which is the main South African unit of currency. Most people call them krugers, which also makes it easier to spell.
In 1980, the South African Mint started to issue fractional krugerrands containing, half, quarter, and tenth of an ounce of gold. For the first thirteen years of their existence a krugerrand meant a one ounce gold coin, most dealers treat the word krugerrand as having its original meaning of the original one ounce krugerrand. For the fractional weights, we refer to them specifically by their content, thus a half ounce krugerrand, a half kruger, or a kruger half, etc..
Sosme people erroneously think that a krugerrand weighs one ounce, but it actually weights one and an eleventh ounces, the extra eleventh of an ounce is copper. As with all precious metal products, the ounces we are referring to are troy ounces not avoirdupois ounces. A trouy ounce weighs 31.1035 grams.
Paul Kruger's full name was Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, this was often prefixed by Oom (Uncle), and was born on October 10th 1825, and died on July 14th 1904.
Other coin events of 1967 include Expo '67 in Canada, which was commemorated on a silver dollar, and was the date of the last £.s.d. coins issued for circulation in Great Britain prior to decimalisation.

Pile of Krugerrands