Bracelet / Currency – Copper – Senufo – Ivory Coast

Old copper Manilla – Senufo Ivory Coast bracelet.

Copper alloy forms like these were both worn and used as currency. The anklets, made hollow by the lost wax process, were part of a woman’s dowry.
Manillas are (almost ring-like) bracelets, mostly in bronze or copper, very rarely of gold. They served as a kind of money or barter. They were also used as decoration in certain West African nations like Guinea Coast, Gold Coast, Calabar Kingdom, other parts of Nigeria. Manillas were also known as “slave trade money”. The Europeans began to use the Manillas to buy slaves for the slave trade in the Americas (as well as in England before 1807) The size and weight of a Manilla determined the exchange value.