1/2 Penny - George V

British West Africa was a fiscal convenience rather than a political entity — a collective designation for the Gold Coast, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia, administered under a common currency to simplify colonial trade accounting. The West African Currency Board, established in 1912, issued these coins specifically to displace the Maria Theresa thalers, manillas, and cowrie shells still widely used across the region. The Board's mandate was explicitly extractive: coins were to be exchanged for sterling at a fixed rate, tying local commerce to London's financial infrastructure.

The copper-nickel alloy was chosen over bronze partly for durability in humid tropical conditions.