1 Penny - Victoria Cape of Good Hope

The Cape of Good Hope issued its own coinage independently of the broader South African territories until Union in 1910, and these nickel pennies were produced at a time when the colony was navigating the competing pressures of diamond money flooding in from Kimberley and chronic small-change shortages in everyday commerce. Nickel was an unusual choice — most contemporary colonial issues ran to bronze — and the composition was deliberate, intended to resist the harsh coastal climate better than copper alloys.

The Hern reference places this among a small series that circulated alongside British imperial coinage without ever fully displacing it.