In Baldwins auction on the 22nd of July one of the many highlights of the sale is an extremely rare Veld Pond with a Huguenot family provenance (Lot 365).
Coins
Auction Preview: An extremely rare Veld Pond with a Huguenot family provenance
Ema Sikic
6 July 2026
A rare gold Veld Pond, part of an issue of only 986 pieces was struck by hand in a workshop on the Transvaal Gold Mining Estate by P. J. Kloppers, a former head teacher at the De Kaap Government School who became the mint master. This coin is mounted in a pendant and engraved with a name Cori Jubert (Cornelia Jubert) bringing to light an interesting provenance. The granddaughter of the aforementioned Cornelia Jubert who is the current owner of this coin kindly provided the historical context for the creation of Veld Ponds and family history of this particular Veld Pond which we include below.
‘By 1902, the British Empire had captured Pretoria, the capital of the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic), taking control of the official state mint. The Boer commandos were pushed into the wilderness (the veld). They ran out of hard currency, and the local African tribes and merchants refused to accept the Boers' paper money - they wanted gold. In early 1902, a Boer soldier discovered gold in an abandoned mine at Pilgrim's Rest in the Mpumalanga (previously called Transvaal) region. Acting President Schalk Burger gave permission to establish a makeshift mobile mint, called the Staatsmunt te Velde (State Mint in the Field). Using makeshift tools in an old mining workshop, a schoolmaster named P.J. Kloppers was appointed mint master.
The creation of these coins was an incredible feat. The dies were carved by hand. It took seven tries to make a set of steel dies that did not crack when cooled. The front features a stylized, hand-engraved cursive monogram ZAR with the date 1902 underneath and the back simply features the words EEN POND (One Pound). Because the gold was refined to nearly 100% purity in the field, these emergency coins contained more pure gold than the British Sovereigns they were meant to compete with. Only 986 of these coins were ever officially minted before the Boers surrendered in May 1902, and only a fraction have survived.
The 7th generation of our family lived through the Second Anglo-Boer War in the Eastern Transvaal. Daniel Johannes Jacobus Joubert and Johanna Magdalena Cornelia Joubert returned to their farm when peace was declared in May 1902. To mark the birth of their daughter Cornelia Jacoba Susanna Joubert in August 1902, they had this 1902 Veld Pond set into a pendant and engraved it with her name Cori Jubert. Cori (Corrie) was a common nickname for Cornelia. She was my grandmother and after her death, the Veld Pond engraved with her name was passed on to me by my father. I am the 10th generation of this line and carry her full names - Cornelia Jacoba Susanna.
My grandmother is a direct descendant of the French Huguenots. The first generation of her line started with one single man: Pierre Joubert (Jubert) (1665–1732) – the original Huguenot in our family line. Pierre Joubert was a wine-farmer born in La Motte-d'Aigues, France. Following the revocation of religious freedoms for Protestants (Huguenots), he fled to the Netherlands. Pierre and his wife boarded the Dutch East India Company ship Berg China and landed at Table Bay in August 1688. He started a wine farm La Motte which still exists in Franschoek, the Western Cape, South Africa.
Mrs Cornelia (Cori) Joubert
