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10 'Pence' Griqua Town
| Issuer | London Missionary Society |
|---|---|
| Year | 1814-1816 |
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| Currency | Pound (1814-1890) |
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| Obverse description | Central device depicting the emblem of the London Missionary Society: a dove in flight, carrying an olive branch in its beak, rendered in relief against a plain field. The design is simple and emblematic in character, reflecting the missionary context of issue, with no surrounding legend or inscription on this face. |
|---|---|
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| Mintage | ND (1814-1816) |
| Additional information |
The London Missionary Society issued these pieces not as currency in any conventional sense but as a practical solution to a barter economy at the Griqua Town mission station in the Northern Cape. Coinage simply did not reach that far into the interior, and the LMS needed a medium for local trade with the Griqua people. The addition of tin to the silver alloy was almost certainly a deliberate economy measure — bullion was difficult to source this far from Cape Town.
These are among the earliest coins struck for circulation in what is now South Africa, predating any government-sanctioned colonial coinage for the region by decades.