1/2 Penny - George V

British West Africa was never a single colony but an administrative fiction — a collective designation for Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia, whose monetary unification required a purpose-built coinage independent of any individual territorial authority. The West African Currency Board, established in 1912, would eventually formalize this arrangement, making the 1911 issue a transitional stroke issued just ahead of that body's founding.

KM#5 in copper-nickel replaced an earlier holed bronze type, the hole having been dropped partly due to manufacturing concerns and partly to align with broader imperial coinage conventions.