The Neu-Guinea Compagnie was a private chartered company granted authority over German New Guinea in 1885, and for a brief window it held the extraordinary right to issue its own coinage — one of the last instances of a private colonial trading company exercising that privilege anywhere in the world. This 1895 issue was struck at the Berlin mint, but the company's administrative failures were already terminal by that point; the German Imperial government absorbed its territorial functions just two years later in 1899.
Mintage was exceptionally small, and most pieces were repatriated or melted rather than circulating meaningfully in the colony itself.
The Neu-Guinea Compagnie was a private chartered company granted authority over German New Guinea in 1885, and for a brief window it held the extraordinary right to issue its own coinage — one of the last instances of a private colonial trading company exercising that privilege anywhere in the world. This 1895 issue was struck at the Berlin mint, but the company's administrative failures were already terminal by that point; the German Imperial government absorbed its territorial functions just two years later in 1899.
Mintage was exceptionally small, and most pieces were repatriated or melted rather than circulating meaningfully in the colony itself.