PHILIPPINE COLLECTOR'S FORUM

Ray Czahor opened this years meeting stating: our PCF club meets once a year at the ANA Worlds Fair of Money on Friday afternoon with the primary purpose of educating novice and experienced Philippine Collectors alike. We are a self-supporting ANA club through member /attendee donations. We have a free raffle of Philippine coins; stamps, books, albums, and ephemera at the close of our meeting and most attendees always come away with two or three selections for their enjoyment.

Our opening speaker this year was Mr. James Taylor owner and president of the newly reconstituted ANACs grading service. He answered questions on: “Grading problems/Discussion w/Emphasis on Philippines”. He briefed us on the history of ANACS and answered questions about this service. He noted that ANACS has two of the top authenticators in the country in J.P. Martin and Michael Fahey. Some of the questions concerned grading and noting Philippine varieties on the slab label. We were pleased that ANACS authenticates and identifies “Allen” varieties for Philippine coins on their slabs unlike several other major services. Mr. Taylor also discussed the plague of Chinese fakes appearing on the market. One of our members offered detailed in country prepared study notes on identifying authentic Vietnamese and Thai coins for the ANACs library to use. Mr. Taylor also discussed how new graders are trained with grading sets and the use of their over a 1000 coin reference book library. ANACS graders are required to be consistent with the grading tools they use i.e. lighting and loupes so results are consistent. His discussions were well received and gained an applause from the 40+ attendees. One of our members had a problem with a 1906S Peso rejected recently by ANACS for authenticity. Our PCF experts judged it to be genuine; ANACS offered to take a second look at it.

Mr. Neil Shafer was next on the program, His presentation entitled "My Introduction to Philippine Guerilla/ Emergency Notes”. He spoke on his involvement in the history of the discovery and documentation of the many types of Philippine WWII guerilla notes. He is the author of the seminal reference book on the subject (Philippine Emergency and Guerrilla Currency of World War II). One of our attendees, an ex PT boat sailor of WWII in the Philippines made some interesting eyewitness contributions to the discussion about some rare notes he had obtained during the war. This was another in a line of very good and very educational presentations by Neil Shafer at our PCF meetings.

Our third presentation was by Dr. Gary Weiss entitled “ The Interesting Cagayan Province Revenue Stamped emergency Notes”. Gary as a coin /stamp collector has performed an extensive study on the revenue stamp varieties themselves, and those that are known to exist on the Cagayan notes plus those that could still be discovered on these notes. He noted that revenue stamps used on the notes came from printings in 1930, 1931, and 1934 and are distinguishable presenting sub varieties of note denominations. Also, many varieties show extensive doubling. Gary had computer photos of all the varieties on the various notes for everyone to look at. Thank you Gary for enlightening us, and expanding our knowledge about these very interesting and desirable notes.

Dr. Greg Pineda was next and spoke on “The Mystery of the RARE Philippine Proof Peso”. He noted that two pieces of 1907(P) Pesos were discovered in 1979. They were apparently trial pieces struck at the Philadelphia US Mint to test the fineness and strike of the to be newly reduced size silver Pesos: one in .800 fine and the other in .900 fine. The Central Bank Museum acquired the .900 fine Peso while the other went into a private collection. After many years, Dr. Pineda recently was able to acquire the latter piece for his collection, a great addition!

Mr. John Riley shared with us “Philippine tokens—Coins with a Soul”. John stated that tokens can impart a personal, human story that coins and paper money produced in quantities of millions for commerce cannot. Tokens rarely boast the values of the regular coinage series, but they make up for it in their variety and affordability. Most are considerably scarcer than their coinage counterparts. Shortly after Admiral Dewey’s triumphant Manila Bay campaign, token manufacturer Frank and Company set up operations in Manila (1899) and was the primary source for private merchants, the U.S. military and even governmental contracting (the 1913 Culion Island Leper Colony token series) until about 1925. Classic Frank & Co. brass or aluminum tokens are distinctive for their beaded or milled borders and upturned bottom serif on the ‘2’ and are found both in English and Spanish-language as well as denominated in dollars/cents and pesos/centavos. Many military and merchant issues of the 1950’s and 60’s were brought back to the United States in quantity as servicemen’s souvenirs. Examples often are encountered from Pauline’s Club (Basso-318, Olongapo, Zambales and Angeles City) as well as the great BEER, BEER, BEER tokens in various denominations (Basso-270 and variations believed to originate from the Olongapo/Subic Bay area). Often a “give away” of an otherwise unmarked Philippine token is a “20” (centavos) denomination; most locations would opt for quarter-of-a-unit (“25”) markings. One example of a possible fantasy is the 5-cent Post Exchange Corregidor piece (Cunningham’s PI 410) which recently has been seen in numbers. With such a historic WWII background, it is curious that a seemingly common piece such as this wouldn’t have appeared on Gilbert Perez’ token lists nor in Neil Shafer’s or Aldo Basso’s works. Value of tokens is of course is based on the old economics maxim of Supply vs. Demand and, happily, the future looks bright with the popularity that Philippine numismatics is currently enjoying. Examples can be made of the $100+ now being realized by the 1955 “Right with Mapeco Pencils” bus token from Clark Field first pictured in Shafer’s U.S. Territorial Coins of the Philippine Islands and $200 + for an odd overstruck 1928-M one centavo coin marked “Harry’s or Hydro Recreation Room” (attributed in Ray Czahor’s Variety and Oddity Guide). Thanks, John for an interesting view of Philippine tokens, a first for the PCF meeting.

Numismatic researcher, Mr. David T. Alexander, join our forum unexpectedly to give us a very interesting historical briefing about the” Rare Philippine Triad Pass Medal”, dated 1944. He had color photo handouts of one and a Coin world article he had written some years ago dated December 11, 1991 entitled: Philippines’ triad Pass medal needs research (only three known). During the discussions the forum members identified that at least seven medals exist. Thank you David, we are glad to have added to your research with more information.

Mr. Ray Czahor made a brief presentation entitled “A short discussion of the Japanese Homma Medal and Varieties”. This medal was given to Japanese soldiers for their victory in conquering Fort Corregidor Island and the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines during the opening months of WWII. They are interesting and desirable because they are very scarce and some were over- struck on the smaller U.S.-Philippine pesos. To own one is a prize in any collection. Ray provided a very professional handout on the results of his exhaustive study entitled: “A Study Of The Die Varieties Of Philippine/Japanese Homma Medals”. This will now allow any one to decipher what variety they may own, and help in their authentication. Ray also put together a display of 30 Homma medals and lead trial strikes of various kinds/ varieties. Due to the rarity of these pieces this was an amazing feat, Thank you Ray, for your efforts, and scholarly presentation.

Mr. Ken Seymore gave the final presentation entitled “The Philippine Mystery Gold Coin”. He related a tale presented to him in a letter some many years ago. It was an offer to sell a Philippine gold 1945-D twenty-centavo piece in gold. The letter told the story of three known and that they had been authenticated by the mint as real and were presentation pieces. Such pieces were not presently known to exist. The pieces are now scattered amongst three owners somewhere. Ken found out much later that the Philadelphia mint was at the time striking gold bullion coins for Saudi Arabia for use by the oil company Aramco. The small quarter ounce piece was virtually the same diameter as the twenty-centavo. What puzzled Ken more was what could possibly be the presentation they were intended for? Further research revealed that there was a significant Philippine presentation opportunity in the same time frame. This was the 4 July 1946 Philippine Independence Day ceremony from the United States. The identity of the individual who offered the piece has long ago been forgotten, because at the time it was felt the piece was counterfeit. It was only recently that these new facts have crossed together. To this day the pieces have not shown up. Hopefully, they will, and more research can be done. Several people in the audience showed some excitement over the possibilities of these pieces existing and being real. Thank you Ken for making everyone more aware that there are still things in the Philippine numismatic world yet to be discovered.