German New Guinea 1 Mark - Museum Gallery

Bird of Paradise in VF+ that still retains a lot of detail and eye appeal. Germany annexed the northern section of eastern New Guinea in 1884 under the administration of the Neu-Guinea Company. The colony eatablished the capital as Hebershohe and that later became Rabaul. The colony was occupied by Australia in August of 1914. There's a small cut on the obverse rim. Mintage was 33 K for this one-year type.
Without color it is difficult to tell which of the 7 species of genus Paradisaea this particular bird represents, probably the Greater or Goldie's Bird of Paradise. Perhaps a look at colony paper money will tell the story.
This German colony was established by banker Adolph von Hansemann. As founder and owner of the biggest private bank of the German Empire he funded railway tracks in Venezuela and Shandong, established the German Sea Trading Company and the German New Guinea Company. Investors and managers wanted to quickly establish plantations but the long supply train and the lack of skilled works quickly made them realize they had miscalculated. The German New Guinea Company was forced to sell their colony rights before impending bankruptcy to the German Imperial government in 1898.
A reminder of that episode of German economic history is the splendid coinage that was made solely in 1894 on behalf of the German New Guinea Company in Berlin. Famous is the beautiful depiction of a bird of paradise, a design created by Otto Schultz, at that time, the most gifted die cutter of the Berlin Mint.
The coins were introduced to gain control of the disappearance of German circulation coinage. It was for that reason that special coinages were introduced in New Guinea in 1894 which were forbidden to export. At the same time, foreign currencies were prohibited. German coins were allowed to coexist with the New Guinea Mark.
In 1888, during a volcanic eruption, an island sank, and the subsequent tsunami claimed the lives of 5,000 people. The colony's capital had to be abandoned in 1891 due to a malaria epidemic. Shortly before the First World War commenced only 772 Germans lived in the colony. It's not surprising that Australian and Japanese troops were able to conquer German New Guinea immediately after WWI. In the mean time Papua New Guinea seemingly reintroduced depictions of this same bird on their regular and NCLT beginning in 1975. See particularly the 10 Kina piece represented here in the Moneta Museum.