It was November of 1899 in colonial Africa— in what is called South Africa today.
The Second Boer War had already started, on October 11.
The British government had rejected an ultimatum issued by the Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State.
The republics had demanded the withdrawal of British troops from their borders, primarily due to growing tensions caused by the discovery of gold in the Transvaal (Johannesburg today) and the influx of British “Uitlander” (foreigner) miners who were denied political rights by the Boer government.
The mint, where the republics produced gold coins for 1899, soon learned that the Kruger Pound dies for the 1899 coins were intercepted by the British in then-Lourenzo Marques in Mozambique (Maputo, today).
On the 2nd day of November 1899 at 10.30am, a single figure 9 was stamped at the bottom of the President’s bust on an 1898 coin, slightly overlapping the design. The coin is known today as ‘the single nine counterstamp’ or simply the ‘Single 9’, and is South Africa’s only one-of-a-kind coin.