The ligand, 4-methyl imidazole(L), forms a wide variety of new coordination complexes with cobalt(II) and nickel(II) ions. The complexes obtained by the direct reaction of metal salts, containing anions ranging from small and strongly coordinating to those usually believed to be noncoordinating, and the ligand, are of the type [ML 6]X 2, [ML 6]X(ClO 4), [NiL 6][HgCl 4], [NiL 4(NCS) 2], [NiL 4(NCS)(ClO 4)], [NiL 2(NCS) 2] having 6-coordinated octahedral or distorted octahedral structures, and [NiLCl 2] and [Me 4N][NiLCl 3] with a tetrahedral structure. The [ML 6](NCS) 2 complexes contain ionic thiocyanate group, the [NiL 4(NCS) 2] and [NiL 4(NCS)(ClO 4)] contain N-bonded iso-thiocyanate groups, whereas the [NiL 2(NCS) 2] has bridging thiocyanate groups. Except for nickel(II) thiocyanate, attempts to prepare bis- or tetrakis-complexes by direct reaction resulted only in an oily mass and no stable compound could be prepared. The stoichiometry and stereochemistry of the complexes have been deduced on the basis of analytical data, electronic and IR spectra, molar conductance and room temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements. Thermal decomposition of the parent hexakis complexes [ML 6] +2 at 130°C gave tetrahedral Co(II) complexes, e.g. [CoL 4]X 2 (X = ClO 4, BF 4) and [CoL 2X 2] (X = Cl, Br, I, NCS) and tetragonally distorted trans-octahedral complexes, [NiL 4X 2] (X = Cl, Br, I).