Last week I read an article on the News24  website by Robert J Traydon with the heading "The introduction of a R10 coin is long overdue" that I thought was quite interesting.

It read as follows:

The last coin introduced into South African currency was the R5 coin back in 1994, and before that, the R2 coin in 1989. Surely the time has come for the South African Reserve Bank to strike a new R10 coin for circulation.

If we were to use the price of bread as the benchmark for minting new denomination coins, then the minting of a new R10 coin is long overdue. In 1989, the R2 coin was minted when a loaf of bread cost just R1, and in 1994, the R5 coin was minted when bread cost roughly R2.50. This would suggest that new denomination coins are minted when the bread price reaches half the prospective coin value.

Using this benchmark, the R10 coin should have been minted back in 2010 when the bread price reached R5 per loaf, and we should, in fact, be due for the minting of a R20 coin considering that the average bread price in 2017 already exceeds R10!

For the rest of the article click on the link below.

https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/the-introduction-of-a-r10-coin-is-long-overdue-20171229