15 MINING PROPERTY LEFT BEHIND IN EXCELLENT CONDITION
 

Hugh Hughes was appointed as General Manager of TGME after the war and on 14 July 1902 he reported as follows after visiting the mine at Pilgrim’s Rest:

 

The machinery in the workshop is in splendid order. The Boers used our punching machines for the minting of a few hundred 1902 sovereigns… The three large safes inside the strong room were not touched in any way. The cash balance of £137-0s-10d was intact.

He also mentioned that bar gold to the value of £17 000 was untouched by the Boers.
 
At the first annual general meeting of the TGME mine in 1902 in Johannesburg, the chairperson said the following:
 

The action of the Boer authorities in the Lydenburg district in connection with the mines under their control has been highly creditable to them. Of course they commandeered all stores and material of which they could make any use, but they avoided wanton destruction. It must be remembered in this connection that our property, which is scattered over a great area, was under the control of the Boers throughout the whole period of the war, excepting for a few days when General Buller’s forces passed through Pilgrim’s Rest.91
Our manager, on his return, found all the Company’s safes, books, documents, and plans as he had left them in the strong room. He found unlocked in our store room the lead bullion for September and part of October 1899 and, above all, he found practically intact the whole of the buildings, plant and machinery, valued at 200 000 pound. 92
 
16 THE LAST TIME THE DIES WERE USED
 
According to Kloppers, he handed the dies to General Muller around 14 June 1902. 93

Many counterfeit Veldpond, is said to have been struck with the Veldpond dies after the war. In 1934 the Master of the Royal Mint in Pretoria, Mr Becklake, began a search for the original dies. At that time it was believed that Lord Kitchener had seized them. A search into Kitchener’s correspondence revealed that it was never in his possession.94 Two years later professor EHD Arndt discovered that General Muller donated the pair of Veldpond dies, between 1910-1914, to the diamond magnate Sir T Cullinan. In 1939 Sir Cullinan’s widow knew nothing of it and in a letter written by her secretary it is stated that the dies may have been stolen by one of the employees.95

 
17 MARSHALL’S BOOK
 
Alex Marshall had a camera with which he took several photos of the Boers at Pilgrim’s Rest. After the war he published a book, Photos of Boer Commandos taken at Pilgrim’s Rest. One of the photos in the book is the well-known photo of the mint team posing at the small punching machine. The big machine that was mainly used was too heavy to be carried out into the sun for a photo.
 
TEAM OF THE ZAR MINT ON THE FIELD
 
Photo taken by A Marshall
 
PJ Kloppers, an employee of the TGME, WG Reid, AEG Pienaar and Dick Graham.
Absent: MJ Cooney
 
Marshall himself took the photos while Kloppers presumably wrote the text. This conclusion is drawn on the fact the text, presented under the heading In review/ In Overzicht, contains the same false information that was disseminated by Kloppers in later years.96
 
 

91 Cartwright, AP. Valley of Gold 1980:100.
92 Cartwright, AP. Valley of Gold 1980:100.
93 National Archive Pretoria. Aanwins 202.
94 National Archive Pretoria. SAB GG 234 3/5239.
95 National Archive Pretoria. Aanwins 202.
96 Kloppers was fluent in Dutch and English and after the war quite near at hand, as he was the headmaster of the school at Machadodorp.
 
 
 
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