Egyptian coins from earlier on in the 20th century show an amount of British influence, a reflection on the influence that Britain had on Egypt at the time. One of the more obvious signs of British influence on Egypt’s coins of this time is that fact that most of Egypt’s coins from 1904 to the 1940’s were made in Great Britain, mostly by The Mint, Birmingham. The French also had quite a presence in Egypt around this time but this does not show in any coins. Below though is a French influenced transport token from Cairo. The French language used is obvious evidence of French influence. (Recent info on this piece from a rather reliable source is that the piece was issued by a Belgian company.) Update - a few times in 2003 I saw an Italian token (on Ebay) apparently of same shape (8-scallop with central round hole), material, period and general usage. The similar pieces seen have legends that say it all - on the obverse "VALE PER UNA CORSA A TARIFFA NORMALE 1920" - and on the reverse "TRAMVIE DEL COMUNE DI MILANO".

   A recent casino token from the Omar Khayyam Casino which is located within the Cairo Marriott, Saraya El Gezira St., Zamalek, Cairo. This token is 25mm diameter and of Copper-Nickel. It would seem to seem that this is for use with the Video Poker games in the casino as all the other available games there (according to the “Casinocity” site) are at tables e.g. roulette.

   In November 2003 I managed to find myself an example of one of these tokens, it is, as you see, a little different. The legends on this piece are all in upper case and "EGYPT" is not included. As with the other piece obverse and reverse designs are the same. In May 2005 I got an example of a third casino token type from this casino. It is as per the second variety above but is of diameter 27mm (as opposed to 25mm) and is of a yellowish coloured alloy. The person who got me this larger piece had actually been to this casino earlier in the year. He was able to found out for me that the 25mm pieces are of value 25 U.S. Cents in the casino (a quite common value for that size) and the 27mm pieces are of value 1 U.S. Dollar in the casino.

Update - addition of Kit Kat Lido piece at March 2003.
Update - addition of image & info of my Omar Khayyam Casino token and update on tramways piece at February 2004.
Update - further info on the Omar Khayyam Casino tokens at August 2005