GERMAN EAST AFRICA half heller 1905 J

Description

The Germans got to colonialism late because they didn’t really have a country until the later 19th century. Then they said “Hey, Britain and France hanve colonies, even Belgium has colonies, why shouldn’t we. So they sent expeditions to various Pacific islands and parts of Africa not already taken by other European countries. In the case of German East Africa the first iteration of German presence was the private German East Africa Company, which got in trouble by being to greedy, and the locals revolted. The German army put down the rebellion and established a direct colonial government. That administration endured until World War I, when the British invaded and conquered the territory.

It has been habitual, on the collecting side of numismatics, for “Africa” to exclude the Mediterranean coastal states, which are typically lumped in with the other Arab states in the category “Middle East.” Generally speaking, there was a colonial period and an independent period.

By “Modern World Coins” we mean here, generally, the round, flat, shiny metal objects that people have used for money and still do. “Modern,” though, varies by location. There was some other way they were doing their economies, and then they switched over to “modern coins,” then they went toward paper money, now we’re all going toward digital, a future in which kids look at a coin and say “What’s that?” We’ll say: “We used to use those to buy things.” Kids will ask “How?” The main catalog reference is the Standard Catalog of World Coins, to which the KM numbers refer.