South African Rand - Banknotes

Banknotes

The first series of rand banknotes was introduced in 1961 in denominations of 1, 2, 10 and 20 rand, with similar designs and colours to the preceding pound notes to ease the transition. They bore the image of Jan van Riebeeck, the first V.O.C. administrator of Cape Town. Like the last pound notes, they came in two variants, one with English written first and the other with Afrikaans written first. This practice was continued in the 1966 series which included the first 5 rand notes but did not include the 20 rand denomination.

The 1978 series began with denominations of 2, 5 and 10 rand, with 20 and 50 rand introduced in 1984. This series saw a major design change. In addition, the series has only one variant for each denomination of note. Afrikaans was the first language on the 2, 10 and 50 rand, while English was the first language on 5 and 20 rand. The notes bore the image of Jan van Riebeeck.

In the 1990s, the notes were redesigned with images of the Big Five wildlife species. With the 2 and 5 rand coins replacing notes, notes were introduced in 1994 for 100 and 200 rand.

The 2005 series has the same principal design, but with additional security features such as colour shifting ink on the 50 rand and higher and the EURion constellation. The obverses of all denominations are printed in English, while two other languages are printed on the reverses, making all eleven official languages of South Africa available.

In 2010, the South African Reserve Bank and commercial banks withdrew all 1990 series R 200 banknotes due to relatively high quality counterfeit notes in circulation.

In 2011, the South African Reserve Bank issued 100-rand banknotes which were defective because they lacked fluorescent printing visible under UV light. In June, printing of this denomination was shifted from the South African Bank Note Company to Crane Currency’s Swedish division (Tumba Bruk.), which reportedly produced 80 million 100-rand notes. The South African Reserve Bank shredded 3.6 million 100-rand banknotes printed by Crane Currency because they have the same serial numbers as a batch printed by the South African Bank Note Company. In addition, the notes printed in Sweden were not the right colour, and they were one millimeter short.

On 11 February 2012, President Jacob Zuma announced that the country would be issuing a complete set of banknotes bearing Nelson Mandela's image. They were entered into circulation on 6 November 2012.