1/2 Gersh - Menelik II

Struck in the same year as the Battle of Adwa, where Ethiopian forces under Menelik II decisively defeated the Italian army and preserved the country's independence — the only African nation to do so against a European colonial power during the Scramble for Africa. The timing was not coincidental; asserting a national coinage was part of the same project of sovereign state-building.

These copper fractions circulated alongside the silver Maria Theresa Thaler, which had dominated highland trade for over a century and stubbornly remained the preferred medium for large transactions well into the twentieth century.