The Krugerrand is the bullion investor coin of South Africa and the world's first ounce-denominated coin.

The coin is named after Stephanus Johannes Paul Kruger, a prominent Boer resistance fighter against British rule who became the first president of the Transvaal Republic on Dec. 30, 1880.

Krugerrand is an amalgamation of the name Kruger and the denominational system on which the South African coinage is based - the rand.

This 1 troy-ounce gold bullion coin and its fractional sizes are mass-produced to enable the average person to purchase gold easily.

The coins have legal tender status in South Africa, but are not actually intended to be used as currency.

While intended as a bullion coin, the Krugerrand can also be considered a collectible coin.

Proof and Uncirculated versions are available, but not necessarily for each year or for each size produced.

The Proof issues are often released at prices well above the intrinsic value of the precious metals they contain.

While the price of the Uncirculated issues will fluctuate daily based on the spot price of gold, collectors may find themselves having to spend significant money to acquire earlier dates of the Krugerrand, because of collector demand and lower mintages.

The obverse design by Otto Schultz exhibits a portrait facing left of Kruger.

Designer C.L. Steynberg's rendition of a springbok, the national animal of South Africa, appears on the reverse.

Krugerrands are available in four sizes, composed of .9166 fine gold (22 karats) and each containing an exact amount of pure gold: the 1-ounce, 10-rand coin (32.69 millimeters in diameter), introduced in 1967, and three fractional versions, all introduced in 1980 to provide the buyer the opportunity to acquire gold more affordably.

The smaller pieces are the half-ounce gold coin (27 millimeters, 5 rand), the quarter-ounce gold coin (22 millimeters, 2.5 rand) and the tenth-ounce gold coin (16.5 millimeters, 1 rand).

The Wikipedia.com Web site (www.wikipedia.com) notes, "The success of the Krugerrand led to many other gold-producing nations minting their own bullion coins, including (in rough order of popularity) the American Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs, Chinese Panda, British Britannias, and Austrian Philharmonics."

Such ounce-denominated gold bullion coins are in contrast to previous, circulating gold coins, which were struck with specific denominations, with the amount of gold in each coin representative of the denomination. For example, the U.S. gold coins struck for circulation from 1795 to 1933 range in denomination from $1 to $20; all bear uneven amounts of gold rather than the 1 ounce or its fractions of the metal found in modern bullion coins.

Collectors seeking to obtain specimens of the Uncirculated Krugerrands of any size can obtain them from dealers who specialize in the buying and selling of the coins as an investment vehicle.

Proof Krugerrands from previous years may also be available from bullion dealers, but are more likely to be found among the inventories of dealers of foreign coinage.

Such dealers can be found in the classified and display advertising pages of Coin World.

Collectors may also avail themselves of the Internet by using a search engine and plugging in the word "Krugerrand" to identify sellers of gold Krugerrands. Financial planners may also have access to such coins.

Some issues have been seen offered on eBay and other Internet auction sites.

The current year's Proof Krugerrands can be obtained by contacting the South African Mint directly.

The South African Mint also provides a list of international distributors of its various coins with contact information via an Internet link accessible through www.samint.co.za/home/stat ic.php?ContentID=31.

Although the Krugerrand's sizes and its gold fineness are identical to those for the American Eagle, which is produced by the United States Mint, the Krugerrand has traded at prices significantly below the American Eagle since the American Eagle's introduction in 1986.

For example, as of Feb. 19, the closing London spot price of gold was recorded on the Kitco.com Web site (www.kit co.com) at $409.80 per ounce. The 1-ounce Eagle was correspondingly valued at $454.37, the 1-ounce Britannia at $434.39 and the 1-ounce Krugerrand at $418.30.

Collectors seeking to assemble a collection of South African Krugerrands by year and size have a daunting mission ahead of them.

Mintages for some years are very limited; for the Uncirculated coins, mintages run from a few hundred pieces to several million, while the Proof mintages are much lower.

The Krugerrand was first struck at the South African Mint on July 3, 1967.

Mintages for the first few years were small, ranging from 40,000 in 1967 to 20,000 in 1969.

The coin was first mass-produced in 1970, when the mintage climbed to 211,000 pieces.

Production increased to 550,000 pieces in 1971.

During the early years of the coin's production, the South African Mint both struck and sold the Krugerrands.

That changed during the 1970s when the South African gold mining industry formed the International Gold Corp. (Intergold) as a marketing arm.

Intergold began marketing gold to individual investors worldwide, using the Uncirculated bullion versions of the Krugerrand as the medium.

The South African Mint continued to sell the Proof versions of the coin.

From its inception in 1967, the bullion Krugerrand was sold at a very low premium (5 percent) over the base gold value.

More than 46.3 million ounces (1,440 tons) or 54.5 million coins of all four sizes have been sold worldwide, making it the most successful in the history of gold bullion coins, according to the South African Mint. In 1978, sales reached a peak of more than 6 million ounces.

This peak came after the legalization of gold ownership in the United States on Dec. 31, 1974.

From 1933 to 1974, Americans could only own gold coins considered rare and unusual.

They could not own bullion coins like the Krugerrand or modern commemoratives like Canada's 1967 Centennial of Confederation $20 coin.

With the elimination of all barriers to gold ownership in the United States, a worldwide market in silver and gold developed where commodities prices changed daily and money could be made or lost in speculation.

The Krugerrand's fortunes changed in the mid-1980s, with the growth of a worldwide anti-apartheid movement.

Under apartheid, South Africa's restrictive laws governed almost every aspect of the lives of blacks and mixed races.

In reaction to apartheid, many countries, including the United States, banned importations of new Krugerrands.

The Krugerrand continued to be produced during the years they were banned for importation into certain countries, albeit in significantly reduced mintages.

Sanctions against the import of the Krugerrand were removed by most countries in the 1990s.

Apartheid officially ended April 27, 1994, with the first democratic election held in South Africa.

With competition from other nations' bullion coins, the Krugerrand has never regained its former spot as the most popular bullion piece.