2 Francs

The Banque du Congo Belge issued this brass piece as a direct consequence of wartime metal shortages that had disrupted colonial coinage throughout the early 1940s. Belgium itself was under German occupation, severing normal administrative channels, and the Congo's monetary supply was managed increasingly from London and through colonial banking structures operating at arm's length from Brussels.

Brass was a practical concession — nickel and copper-nickel alloys had been diverted to the war effort, and the switch carried into the immediate postwar years longer than anticipated.