5 Dollars German New Guinea

Palau's late-1990s commemorative program leaned heavily on the legacy of German colonial Pacific territories — a subject with essentially no connection to Palau itself. German New Guinea, administered by the Neu-Guinea Kompagnie from 1885 before the German imperial government assumed direct control in 1899, collapsed entirely when Australian forces seized the territory within weeks of the First World War's outbreak in 1914. Palau issued this piece under its post-Compact of Free Association authority, using New Zealand and foreign mints to produce collector silver marketed almost entirely to the European market.