1 Shilling Copper-nickel

Kenya's shilling coinage of this period was issued under the authority of a central bank that had only existed since 1966, itself a product of the collapse of the East African Currency Board — a colonial monetary institution that had served Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania jointly until political independence made shared currency increasingly untenable. The 1978 start date of this series coincides with the death of Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel arap Moi's succession to the presidency, a transition that prompted gradual but deliberate changes across official state imagery.