5 Centimes - Albert I Dutch text

Belgium's linguistic divide made even small coinage political. From 1910 onward, the kingdom issued parallel Dutch- and French-text versions of its minor denominations — not as a convenience, but as a hard-won concession to Flemish cultural pressure that had been building since the 1880s. The two versions circulated simultaneously and were legally interchangeable, though in practice each tended to stay within its own linguistic region.

Production was interrupted by the German occupation of 1914–1918, during which Belgian mint operations effectively ceased and the country's coinage was supplanted by occupation issues struck in zinc.