Collecting the philippines

PHILIPPINE COLLECTORS FORUM—PHILADELPHIA, AUGUST 2012

Philadelphia, PA and the 121st Anniversary Convention of the American
Numismatic Association, was the setting on Friday, August 10, 2012 for
this year’s annual gathering of the Philippine Collectors Forum (PCF).

Philly’s meeting marked the 11th get-together of the group and a great
opportunity again to see familiar faces, as wellas to greet a few new
ones, all sharing a common interest in the coinage, paper money and
exonumia of the Philippines.

Ray Czahor opened this year’s meeting with greetings to the 13
attendees; acknowledgments were made of recent collector news and
noteworthy events within this specialty area. The PCF is a volunteer
collector group, focused on education, that is recognized by theAmerican Numismatic Association and is supported entirely by
donations. The organization is non-dues paying and was formed to
foster interest in all Philippines numismatics among interested
collectors and dealers. (As an aside, Ray indicated he expects to have another Philippine Numismatic and WWII book mail bid auction ready by late Fall.)

The first presenter at this session was RogerUrce who reprised his talk on the coins and paper of the famous Culion Leper Colony that is located in the southern Philippines and that exists to this day. Roger has gathered fascinating background information on the disease of leprosy itself and how the colony came to be. There was discussion about the references available on this unique marriage of medicine, folklore and numismatics, notably“The Numismatic Aspacts of Leprosy, Money, Medals and Miscellanea,” co-authored by PCF member John Grost and others in 1995. Roger talked about all the coin issues from the 1/2 Centavo in 1913 in aluminum to the 1930 10 Centavos in copper nickel. Roger went on to discuss the war-time paper money issues in 1942 in denominations One, Five, Twenty, Fifty Centavos(including 50/20 Centavo error), andOne, Five, and Twenty Peso issues.

Ray complimented Roger’s talk with several CLC rarities. First was the type III 1920 Peso, distinctive with a “1” flat blunt serif like on the 1906S Peso and rounder numerals—the authors of the book above never saw this die variety while Ray said he had only seen four pieces in the last 30+ years. He then displayed a unique 1927 pattern one centavo token fromthe colony with denticles around the circumference of both obverse and reverse of the coin – the piece has not been identified heretofore in hobby circles. A wonderful find! The token shows a combination of Type III obverse and Type I reverse. It is apparent that the hobby is ready for new references on Culion Island material as there have been new hoards found (particularly the 1942emergency notes) and discoveries made in recent years, some under rather questionable circumstances and values in many cases remain in great flux. An interesting question was raised as to the actual designers of the tokens – it is known the 1913 series was produced by Manila die-cutter Frank & Co., and the later issues struck at the Manila Mint, but who actually designed these coins? Manila mintrecords were destroyed during the War so we may never know. Ray also showed an apparent presentation set of 1942 CLC Emergency Currency. They are serial numbered starting with #90021 for the One Centavo note ending with #90027 for the 20 Peso note, serial numbers significantly higher than issued notes. C.M. Nielsen believed the presentation sets were given to buyers of CLC Director, Dr. Wade’streatise of the CLC during the War. It was typed (not printed) in just a few copies. (If anyone wants a copy of Ray’s presentation, he will provide it for postage costs of $2 to US addresses.)

Next to present was Neil Shafer who provided a recap of the June 10,
2012 auction at the Memphis International Paper Money Show that
featured Dr. Greg Pineda’s wonderful collection of Philippines coins...