One Penny 1940, Coin from British West Africa - detailed information

The British West African Pound was the currency of British West Africa, a group of British colonies, protectorates and mandate territories - Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Ghana (originally Gold Coast) and Gambia. From 1907 till 1911 the reverse of the coins showed the legend NIGERIA - BRITISH WEST AFRICA, then from 1912 the word NIGERIA was discontinued.

The British West African Pound was equal to the (pre-decimal) Pound Sterling and was similarly subdivided into 20 shillings, each of 12 pence. In other words, the penny was thus equal to 1/12th of a shilling or 1/240th of a pound (i.e., 240 of these coins made one pound).

Unlike its Imperial counterpart - the British Penny - the British West African Penny had a central hole which made the two coins incompatible; this was done to make sure that colonial money does not get exported to Great Britain to be used there, leaving the colonies with no cash.

For most of the history of the denomination, the coins were made of CuproNickel (copper-nickel) - like this one; this changed to bronze in 1952.

After decolonisation, the coins were replaced by the various new countries as they introduced their own independent currencies:
- Nigeria introduced the Nigerian Pound in 1958
- Ghana introduced in Ghanaian Pound in 1958
- British Cameroon (on unification with Cameroon) adopted the Central African CFA Franc in 1961
- Sierra Leone introduced the Leone in 1964
- Gambia introduced the Gambian Pound in 1965

In some places, British West African coins circulated in parallel with the new coinage until 1968. Thus, one penny coins issued in 1940 would have circulated for up to 28 years depending on location.