5 Cents - Elizabeth II 1st portrait

The Eastern Caribbean Currency Authority was established in 1950 to serve the British West Indies territories that lacked individual central banks, and these early issues circulated across a patchwork of colonies — Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and others — all sharing a single coinage. The arrangement was administratively tidy but politically complicated, as several of these territories were simultaneously negotiating the terms of the short-lived West Indies Federation, which collapsed in 1962.

Nickel brass was chosen partly for its resistance to the corrosive salt-air environment of the Caribbean, a practical consideration that had plagued earlier copper issues in the region.