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2 Shillings - George VI
| Issuer | Southern Rhodesia (1932-1955) |
|---|---|
| Year | 1944-1946 |
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| Composition | Silver (.500) |
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| Obverse description | Right-facing effigy of King George VI, bare-headed, with a restrained, portrait-style bust truncated at the shoulder. The legend encircles the portrait along the upper and lower periphery of the obverse field. The design is executed in a precise, low-relief style characteristic of Percy Metcalfe's work for British colonial coinage of the era. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | A Sable Antelope (Hippotragus niger) depicted in left-facing profile, rendered naturalistically with its distinctive swept-back horns and robust body as the central motif of the reverse. The denomination TWO SHILLINGS appears in the lower field beneath the animal, while the issuer name SOUTHERN RHODESIA arcs along the upper periphery. The date of issue is positioned within the design field flanking the antelope, accompanied by the initials KG denoting the reverse engraver George Kruger Gray. The composition reflects the characteristic wildlife imagery employed on Southern Rhodesian colonial coinage. |
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| Additional information |
The wartime shift to .500 fine silver — down from the .925 standard used before 1937 — was a direct consequence of sterling silver shortages across the British Empire during the Second World War. Southern Rhodesia, like most Crown dependencies and dominions, followed British Treasury directives on coinage composition rather than making independent monetary decisions. The reduction was never reversed for this denomination.
KM#19a distinguishes this debased alloy type from the earlier KM#19, a separation that matters more than it might appear — the two types are visually indistinguishable in worn grades.