World coins chat: British East Africa & Mombasa

The Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC) set up a trading post in Mombasa in 1885 following the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty between Britain and the German Empire. Mombasa was part of the Sultanate of Zanzibar before that but was by no means powerful enough to stop the British and Germans occupying the Swahili coast. The IBEAC introduced the Rupee which was equal to the Indian Rupee and subdivided in 16 Annas of each 4 Pice. Coins were introduced and only the 1888 copper Pice is not that rare, the others are.

In 1895 the IBEAC handed the colony to the British crown as it was close to bankruptcy. The British East African Protectorate was established with a copper Pice minted in 1891. In 1904 the Rupee was decimalised into 100 Cents and the coins bore the inscription East Africa & Uganda Protectorates. This currency brought the first aluminium coin in history: a 1906 half cent.

Because of the rising silver prices around WW1, the Rupee appreciated versus the Pound which was on the gold standard. Because of this, the East African Rupee was replaced by the Florin at par in 1920, only to be replaced by the Shilling in 1922 at a rate of 2 Shillings per Florin. This East African Shilling was equal to a British homeland Shilling. It is one of the few currencies that have coins with a legend of King Edwars VIII, who abdicated a few months after succeeding George V because he wished to marry a divorced American woman.

The East African Shilling was used in Uganda, Kenya and Tanganyika from 1922. In 1936 Zanzibar joined and from 1941 the British also introduced it in Ethiopia and Somalia at a rate of 24 Lire per Shilling after conquering these territories from Italy during WW2. After the war the East African Shilling was even used in Aden Protectorate in present-day Yemen.



After Kenyan, Ugandan and Tanganyikan independence in 1961-3 the East African Shilling remained the currency, until each of these new countries introduced their own Shillings from 1966.

Somalia based its Shilling on the East African Shilling after the Italians had briefly established the Somalo. Ethiopia introduced the Birr for 2 Shillings, and the South Arabian Federation replaced the Shilling with the Dinar which was worth 20 Shillings.

There are plans to unite Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda & Burundi into the East African Federation, proposing a new East African Shilling as its new currency. Perhaps seeing the challenges the Eurozone is facing at the moment these plans are still just plans.

Mombasa:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/mombasa-1.html

East Africa
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/afrique_de_l_est-1.html

My only Mombasa coin - also, the only affordable Mombasa coin. The silver issues look awesome but they'll cost you!


Anyway, surprise, surprise, after the Imperial British East Africa Company started noodling around in East Africa, the inevitable outcome was for East Africa to become a British colony. It turns out that I only have one coin from my East Africa collection scanned. It's a nice one, though! The lion design is one of those high-effort British colonial designs.

Fans of the British monarchy take note - King Edward VIII ruled for 10 months in 1936 before abdicating for various (very publicized) reasons. An official coinage portrait of him was never prepared in time, so no coins exist with a portrait of Edward VIII on them (for the record, he would have broken a centuries-long tradition of monarchs facing in alternating directions on British coins to "show off his good side" - what a twerp). However, the British also struck a few coins with no portraits. Usually the lack of portraiture was due to a hole in the center of the coin. These were much easier to update before Edward VIII's short reign ended and there are quite a few coins with the name "King Edward VIII" on them - but none from Britain proper, and none with a portrait. All of the lower denominations of the East African shilling have holes in the middle, so these coins are probably your best chance to acquire an issue of Edward VIII.

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces11908.html
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces6229.html

Here's my only Edward VIII coin - but it's from Fiji.

Nice short lived coins set for Mombasa ! I have the rupee. Crap pic sorry !



And the 1/4 Anna I have 4 variants of it including the more scarce sans serif version !

Here's a better pic. Plus I only have 3 of the 5 I thought.

What are the 2 I have though small or medium letters.

The 2 Annas is quite scarce, as is the 1 Rupee.

The 4 Annas & 1/2 Rupee are the ones missing from my set from Mombasa.

Aidan.