The coinage of German New Guinea

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The reverse of the ½ Mark coin, courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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The reverse of the 1 Mark coin, courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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The reverse of the 2 Mark coin, courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

The sizes of the coins here are not to scale.

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The reverse of the 5 Mark coin, courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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All the preceding coins were dated 1894 only. The two gold coins, the 10 and 20 Mark coins, were dated 1895 only.

The images of the 10 Mark coin are courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

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The images of the 20 Mark coin are courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection of the National Museum of American History.

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From Wikipedia:

These coins were demonetized on April 15, 1911, in exchange for the German Mark, the only legal tender after that date.

In 1914, during World War I, German New Guinea was quickly occupied by Australia. That year, the Australian authorities issued Treasury notes denominated in marks. In 1915, the Mark was replaced by the Australian pound.

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From Wikipedia:

Following the outbreak of World War I, Australian troops captured Kaiser-Wilhelmsland and the nearby islands in 1914, after a short resistance led by captain Carl von Klewitz and Lt. Robert "Lord Bob" von Blumenthal, while Japan occupied most of the remaining German possessions in the Pacific.

The only significant battle occurred on 11 September 1914, when the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force attacked the low-power wireless station at Bita Paka (near Rabaul) on the island of New Britain, then Neu Pommern. The Australians suffered six dead and four wounded – the first Australian military casualties of the First World War. The German forces fared much worse, with one German officer and 30 native police killed and one German officer and ten native police wounded. On 21 September all German forces in the colony surrendered.

After the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, Germany lost all its colonial possessions, including German New Guinea. In 1923, the League of Nations gave Australia a trustee mandate over Nauru, with the United Kingdom and New Zealand as co-trustees. Other lands south of the equator became the Territory of New Guinea, a League of Nations Mandate Territory under Australian administration until 1949 (interrupted by Japanese occupation during the New Guinea campaign).

The islands north of the equator (the Marshall Islands, the Caroline Islands, the Marianas Islands, the Palau Islands, along with Kiautschou in China) became the Japanese League of Nations Mandate for the South Seas Islands. After Japan's defeat in World War II, the former Japanese mandate islands were administered by the United States as the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, a United Nations trust territory.

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From Wikipedia:

The New Guinea Act 1920 was an Act passed by the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, which saw the transfer of the territory of German New Guinea from Germany to Australia under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.

The Act formally established New Guinea as a League of Nations Mandated Territory that was to be administered by Australia. The Act remained in effect until New Guinea's merger with Papua, following the passage of the Papua and New Guinea Act 1949.

After the Second World War, the Papua and New Guinea Act 1949 united the Territory of Papua and the Territory of New Guinea as the Territory of Papua and New Guinea. It changed the status of the territories of Papua and New Guinea by merging their administrations to form Papua and New Guinea. However, for the purposes of Australian nationality a distinction was maintained between the two territories. The act provided for a Legislative Council (which was established in 1951), a judicial organization, a public service, and a system of local government.

In effect, this meant that the population of the Territory of Papua remained Australian by nationality, whilst the population of the Territory of New Guinea did not receive Australian nationality. This was because Australia merely adminstered the Territory of New Guinea under the auspices of the United Nations, whereas it continued to rule the Territory of Papua as an external Australian territory.

Under Australian Minister for External Territories Andrew Peacock, the Territory of Papua and New Guinea adopted self-government in 1972 and on 15 September 1975, during the term of the Whitlam Government in Australia, the Territory became the independent nation of Papua New Guinea.

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This table from Wikipedia shows the extent of Germany's Pacific empire in today's terms. It covers German New Guinea and German Samoa.

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The coins were all designed by Emil Weigand (obverse or value side) and Otto Schultz (reverse or image side). They designed various German coins; Schultz is also "famous" because he designed the portrait side of the South African Krugerrand coins ...

Christian

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Yes, that lazy scoundrel Schultz again, using similar designs for countries all over the world. 

See also: Similar design coins.

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The work of Otto Schultz again. 

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See also:

1] Birds of Paradise.

2] Coinage of New Guinea.

3] Indonesia, Birds, and Wallace's Line.

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The work of Otto Schultz again. 

Well, he worked for the Berlin mint, as a medalist (Medailleur) and later even "First Medalist". In his younger years Schultz was at various mints in Paris, London (five years at the Wyon Mint) etc. He got around quite a bit.

Christian