Head Tax Discs Of New Guinea

New Guinea head tax discs are quite well-known, and quite popular with collectors of Australian government exonumia. They're also quite pricey, which is why I only have the one (1939/40) which I paid $90 for back in 2012.

As for the discrepancy between the theoretical existence of 1923 tax token discs and the lack of actual examples or other evidence for their existence, it seems likeliest to me that those early discs, if they exist, might have been somewhat generic in design - it was, after all ,the first time that Australia had made such things and didn;t know exactly what they'd need or find useful. Perhaps they were completely plain and lacking any inscription at all, so they looked just like a washer or some other piece of scrap metal. Or maybe they were just blank except for the denomination, so that everybody has written them off as some kind of generic private token. It wouldn't have taken long for the government to realise that dating the tokens would be a much more effective system of checking that payment had been made, once discs from multiple years existed.

Seems logical to be, but then, if that were true, one would think that somebody in territorial administration would have written that down somewhere for Bill Mira to find. Logically, there should also be records at whichever government workshop or sub-contracted private mint produced the things.

This lends itself to another unanswered question: Who produced these pieces?
Allegedly, a disc was sighted with a small incused AMOR on the reverse - but again, has anyone seen such an example? I can find no auction record of such a piece (which is not to say one doesn't exist!). Additionally, Mira indicates an "extensive search of this Sydney company's records has not been productive of any proof that it manufactured the pieces".

Interestingly, the Type 2 discs are almost identical in structure to the Territory of Papua - Village Councillor badges (pictured-left) produced by Millers of Sydney. However, no surviving records confirm their involvement in production of head tax discs.

Type 3 discs from the first year of issue (1932-33) have "H B SALE B'HAM ENGLAND" raised along the periphery of the reverse (pictured). Which is not present on later dates. Then, to invite some confusion, a 1940-41 specimen (Noble Sale 92, Lot 1236) is stated as having an "indecipherable maker's mark on the reverse" - something I haven't been able to verify with other specimens of this date.

I seems probable that multiple private mints were involved at varying times when these discs were issued. I am not aware of any clues pointing to who stamped the Type 1 discs or manufactured a possible earlier issue - but perhaps someone will have an idea?

Just found this and thought is would add photos of my two Head tax tokens.

to the Community, Supercell21!