4 Shillings - 'Pound Sterling'

Tonga's first government-issued banknotes appeared in 1921 under Queen Salote Tupou III, and this 4 Shilling denomination — an unusual face value by any standard — reflects the practical arithmetic of a country where the traditional tax unit, the tokelau, mapped awkwardly onto sterling subdivisions. Four shillings was precisely one-fifth of a pound, which made it useful for tax collection and wage payments in a small, largely subsistence economy with limited coin supply.

De La Rue's involvement from the outset placed these notes among the better-produced colonial issues of the Pacific. The series ran through 1936, the year of Salote's consolidation of royal authority over church and state finances.