After the Philippines were invaded in 1941, the large portion of the government’s bullion that could not be removed to Australia was sunk early in 1942 in an attempt to keep it from the Japanese. After the war, much of the underwater bullion not already salvaged by the Japanese was recovered and returned to the Philippine treasury, including many silver pesos like the one below.
This 1908s Philippine piece is known in the American coin-hobby as a “sea-salvage peso.” This coin was one of the pieces packed into cloth bags of 2,000 pesos each, then placed into wooden boxes each containing three of the cloth bags, for a total of 6,000 pesos per box.
This coin (and about 15+ million others like it) were then dumped from an American naval barge into the deep water of Caballo Bay south of Corregidor sometime in April or May 1942, just before American and Filipino forces surrendered the island to the invading Japanese.
What else can we say about this particular piece? That it was almost certainly brought up before the end of salvage operations in ‘58, and probably, given its light encrustation, was a prize of one of the earlier postwar efforts. (From the deck of the USS Elder, AN-20, November 1945 through May ’46, for example.) Perhaps it’s also a good guess that the box carrying this 1908s peso didn’t break when it hit the sea bottom in ‘42. (Many of the loose coins were never recovered.)
We might also say, given the EF or better condition of this coin, that it had likely spent much of its prewar life within the vaults of the Philippine Treasury, as backing for paper pesos.
v.
1908s Philippine "sea salvage" peso
- sigistenz
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Re: 1908s Philippine "sea salvage" peso
This is most interesting, villa66! Though being an oldtimer I must say that I 've never heard of it. BTW - can't the uneven toning be mended or do you keep the coin as is, to witness its peculiar past? It's always good to read your contributions as they focus on items which are less in view here.
Thank you, Sigi
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Thank you, Sigi
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Re: 1908s Philippine "sea salvage" peso
That's it Sigi, exactly. I chose this piece very carefully--I wanted a coin whose appearance was obviously "sea-salvage," but not too unattractively so.sigistenz hat geschrieben:...can't the uneven toning be mended or do you keep the coin as is, to witness its peculiar past?
That option, unfortunately, isn't available for the 1936 Commonwealth commemoratives--or so it seems. There were just 10,000 of these 3-coin (peso, peso, 50-centavo) sets struck (and 10,000 extra 50-centavo pieces). The 1936 sets that went unsold were returned to the Philippine Treasury, and they went to the sea bottom in '42 along with the regular issue coins. When the commemoratives were salvaged, they--at least all the ones I have personally seen--were subjected to an extremely harsh cleaning that left them with a most unpleasantly damaged look.
But back to the regular-issue peso. Here's one that stayed out of the water(!).
v.
- sigistenz
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Re: 1908s Philippine "sea salvage" peso
Great coin - thank you for showing. It takes me back to my "Davenport" time in the 70s, when I was collecting world crowns and pesos
Keep on posting. Thanks again, Sigi
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Keep on posting. Thanks again, Sigi
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