Belgium: 10 Centiemen, 1895

[Overlord]

[bart]

This is a nice copper-nickel 10 centimes (with Flemish Dutch legends), struck in the name of our "builder-king" Leopold II.
Leopold II wanted the capital of his tiny kingdom to be as modern as Paris, so he destroyed the old center of Brussels and ordered it would be an "open" capital with boulevards as Paris had. The modernisation of the capital was financed with the revenues he had from his own private state: the Free State Congo, which was his own private property.
After having squeezed the Congo Free State as a lemon, international pressure forced him to cede the Free State to Belgium as a colony in 1908.

Bart

[Figleaf]

This is one of the first copper-nickel coins in the world.

Peter

[bart]

This is one of the first copper-nickel coins in the world.

Peter

This type was preceded by the same type in the name of Leopold I (only in French and struck from 1861 until 1864), but the first copper-nickel coin was the 20 centimes of Leopold I, KM#20 (if I am not mistaken), struck in 1860 and 1861, 35 years before Overlord's coin was struck.

Bart

[Overlord]

Thanks for the info, Bart and Peter.