5 Cents - King George V

East Africa's coinage in this period was administered through the East Africa Currency Board, established in 1905 to provide a unified monetary system across British East Africa, Uganda, and Zanzibar — replacing the chaotic mix of Indian rupees, German colonial marks, and local exchange commodities that preceded it. The First World War complicated supply dramatically: German East Africa shared a long border, and the East African campaign of 1914–1918 disrupted both colonial administration and the physical movement of coin shipments from the Birmingham Mint.

Copper-nickel replaced the earlier silver-washed coinage partly on cost grounds, partly because the humid equatorial climate was punishing on less stable alloys.