1/2 Penny - George VI

The shift to copper-nickel for this issue reflected postwar metal economics rather than any design intent — the cupro-nickel alloy that had been reserved for wartime industrial use was, by the late 1940s, cheap enough to redirect toward colonial coinage. British West Africa's currency board, operating across four distinct territories simultaneously, ordered these struck at the Royal Mint to replace the bronze predecessors that had circulated since the 1910s. George VI's health was deteriorating sharply by 1951; coins bearing his effigy were already being phased out across the empire before his death in February 1952.