"Manillas" are usually open (i.e., horseshoe-shaped) bangles made of metal. They were produced and used as objects of value and exchange in large areas of West Africa even before direct contact with Europeans. There were different types, often made of copper, rarely of gold, which were distinguished mainly by their sound. Through the establishment of trade relations with Portugal (from 1486), the Netherlands (from the end of the 16th century) and England, they increasingly developed into a defined means of payment with a currency function, for example in the palm oil, ivory or slave trade ("slave money"). In addition to the ever-ongoing domestic production, the Portuguese imported 287,813 manillas from 1504-1507 alone via their trading fort of Elmina in present-day Ghana. In 1513, a single merchant ship brought 13,000 Portuguese-made manillas to the Kingdom of Benin. From the end of the 15th century, manillas were predominantly made of the shiny gold brass, then bronze from about 1630. In the 18th century, especially in Bristol and Birmingham, masses of manillas were produced in special factories for the trade. With the British conquest, manillas were to be replaced by regular coins, but they remained official currency in Nigeria until April 1, 1949. Some 2,460 tons of manillas thus became scrap metal that was reused both in Africa and in England. Today, manillas are still produced for tourists in West Africa, kept regionally in family shrines, and sometimes worn by women at funerals. Text: Dietmar Neitzke.