2 Centimes - Albert I

Belgian Congo's copper coinage of this period was produced under the administration established by the Belgian state after it forcibly assumed control of the Congo Free State from Leopold II in 1908 — a direct consequence of international outrage over the atrocities documented by missionaries and journalists throughout the preceding decade. The transition from personal royal possession to formal colonial territory required an entirely new monetary framework, and these small copper pieces were among the first coins struck under that arrangement.

Minted at the Brussels mint, production spanned the First World War years, during which the Congo's considerable mineral resources — particularly copper — became strategically critical to the Allied war effort.