Copper was the "red gold" of Africa and had been both mined there and traded across the Sahara by Italian and Arab merchants. It is not known for certain what the Portuguese or the Dutch manillas looked like. From contemporary records, we know the earliest Portuguese were made in Antwerp for the monarch and possibly other places, and are about long, about gauge, weighing in 1529, though by 1548 the dimensions and weight were reduced to about -. In many places brass, which is cheaper and easier to cast, was preferred to copper, so the Portuguese introduced smaller, yellow manillas made of copper and lead with traces of zinc and other metals. In "Benin, Royal Art of Africa", by Armand Duchateau, is a massive manilla of across and gauge, crudely cast with scoop-faceted sides, and well worn. It could be the heaviest (no weight given) and earliest manilla known. However, in the same book is a plaque with a European holding two pieces of very different form, crescent-shaped without flared ends, though apparently heavy if the proportions are correct. Today, pieces of this size and blunt form are associated with the Congo.