World coins chat: Lesotho

Lesotho emerged as Basutoland in the early 19th century when king Moshoeshoe I unified some tribes around the Butha-Buthe mountain. During the Trek of the Boers they came into conflict over arable land which resulted in the Free State - Basotho wars, which led to Boer victory, emergence of the Orange Free State and Moshoeshoe I asking protection from the British for the remainder of his territory. As such Basutoland became part of the British Empire.

In 1966 Lesotho became independent from Britain. It is the only fully enclaved country in the world, bordering only South Africa. Lesotho used South African currency until the Loti was introduced at par - and still pegged with ZAR - in 1979. Three series of coins exist (1979-1989, 1992 and 1998), which are a bit hard to find but sets can be found regularly for reasonable prices.

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/lesotho-1.html

I only have one coin from Lesotho, and it has a rarity index of 97

I have 14 coins from Lesotho, but not that rare 15 Maloti one :-).

The only ones I miss are the ones from the 1992 series, which are identical to the 1979-1989 series but depict the coat of arms instead of Moshoeshoe.

Let's add some context to the last series. Thanks Wikipedia.

• From 1987/1990 (different years between FR and EN) to 1995 Moshoeshoe II came in exile after a coup d'état  in 1986. The military junta installed his son as new king. This explains the change of effigy.
  
• The new series started in 1996 as introducing new values: 2 & 5 maloti (coincidence: Moshoeshoe II died the same year). In 1998 the 20 lisenti replaced the 25 lisenti (another coincidence: troubles after 1998 general elections)

Funny to see how much troubles are coincidating with new coinage...

As I'm going through my inventory this year, I'm reading three things for each country:

1. Wikipedia article, eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesotho
2. Numista article
3. CIA "World Factbook" (well, looking at pictures there, mostly!)

And I noticed a discrepancy here, as Wikipedia says "It is one of only three independent states completely surrounded by the territory of another country, and the only one outside of the Italian peninsula."

What do you mean? it is outside of the Italian peninsula, or not?

He means the other two are surrounded by Italy.

San Marino and The Vatican

A current set of coins circulating in Lesotho.

 

 

The currency is pegged to the South African rand (Along with Eswatini Lilangeni, Namibian dollars and the Rand of course)

The 10, 20, 50 Lisente are brass plated steel and the Loti, 2 and 5 Maloti (Multiples in Bantu languages have slightly different words - Loti = a single Loti, Maloti more than one) are nickel plated steel.

 

Designs on these coins are similar to coins going back to the 1970s and show grains, men, women and huts.

 

Letsie III is the current king and he is not shown on any of the coins. Lesotho is the home kingdom of the Sesotho/Basotho people. The population is mostly of this group, although some whites, other Southern Bantu peoples live there as well. Many Sotho peoples live in Neighbouring countries like South Africa.