MacArthur Commemorative Coin (1947)

After a long time of not having anything to post, I've decided to include my coin collection just to add something new this time. This particular set of coins that I'll be sharing is a commemorative one and the following info you'll read came from "Coins, Medals and Tokens of the Philippines 1728-1974 " by Aldo P. Basso.

The 1947 peso and 50-centavo coins commemorate the liberation of the Philippines from the Japanese by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. The designer was Laura Gardin Fraser, whose initials appear under the bust of MacArthur. Both coins were weakly struck in low relief at the San Francisco mint. They were the first coins struck for the new republic.

50-Centavos (27mm, 75% Silver, 25% Copper)

MINTAGE(Number of coins made): 200,000

OBVERSE(front): Defender and Liberator/Gen-Douglas/Mac-Arthur divided by bust facing right/Of the Philippines.

REVERSE(back): Pilippines/ Coat of arms of the Republic/1947/Fifty Centavos. (S mintmark below date).

One Peso (36mm, 80% Silver, 20% Copper)

MINTAGE: 100,000 pieces

OBVERSE: Similar above, except the size change.

REVERSE: Similar to above, except One Peso.

Just forgive the last scan cause I had a hard time fixing this one. I hope you learned something from this post and till next time...

5 Peso Victory Note

It's been a while after my last post and after fixing some few drawbacks last week causing my entire files to be accidentally deleted that is composed mostly of scanned collection pictures. Anyway this feels like starting all over again, especially with the picture editing part. At least now that is everything is back to normal, I can continue sharing some of my collection again.

This one is part of the Victory series during the American period and this particular 5 Peso denomination is the only one that bears two portrait instead of one in the entire series. As you can see at the left side of the note bears the portrait of William McKinley and on the right side shows the portrait of George Dewey.

During the earlier issues of the same denomination and only the picture of McKinley is seen, but in this one, Dewey's portrait was added for a reason. It seems that this a way of paying tribute to Dewey as a hero during the Spanish-American war.

I've got some information from Wikipedia telling about Dewey and his role as part of the Philippine history:

" On April 27, 1898, he sailed out from China with orders to attack the Spanish at Manila Bay. He stopped at the mouth of the bay late the night of April 30, and the following morning he gave the order to attack at first light, by saying the now famous words "You may fire when you are ready, Gridley." Within 6 hours, on May 1, he had sunk or captured the entire Spanish Pacific fleet under Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasarón and silenced the shore batteries at Manila, with the loss of only one life on the American side. News of the victory in the Battle of Manila Bay made Dewey a great hero in the United States, and Dewey was promoted to Rear Admiral. Dewey's swift easy victory no doubt did much to encourage the William McKinley administration in its decision to place the Philippines under American control."

Another type of this note got the CENTRAL BANK OF THE PHILIPPINES printed in red at back portion of the note and still having the same design as above. These two notes circulated during the time Sergio Osmeña(Philippine President during that time) as can be seen in the signature next to the serial number of the lower portion of the note.

I kind of notice that these notes seems to have slight burn in one side and maybe someone got the chance to saved it in time before getting destroyed somehow. I'm just lucky though that these are still in somewhat good condition as it seems to be scarce nowadays.

As a last part of this post, I would like to thank Mr. Coolpit for the accommodation last Saturday and for the other collectible items that I've got from him that I will share some other time. Also I would like to thank my uncle for having the back-up copies of the scanned pictures I'm showing. Lucky for me that he is collector as well, thus keeping the picture files safe and sound. Well that's all for now and I'll post again during some free time and thanks for having some time reading this one.

Special Philippine Stamp Issues (with designer signature)

As to give way on my other collections that I have, I'll now share this uncommon philatelic items from the Philippines. Normally one would acquire stamp in singles, blocks or even in sheet but this one's are really different. Personally, I'm not really into stamp collection before and I'm just appreciating such stuff recently while exploring other things to collect other than Philippine money.

This set of stamps came from my collector friend, Mr. Coolpit and it seems that his passion for collecting things influenced me somehow and now I am also appreciating different items other than my earlier collection.

As you can see, the set below seems to be just your average stamps placed in a envelope cover but the difference is that it not a cover(just a piece of hard paper) and it bears the signature of the stamp designer (namely: "Nemesio Dimanlig Jr."). I haven't really seen such manner of presenting stamps before and for me, this is what make these items interesting to have.

The first item depicts Andres Bonifacio(a Filipino hero) and holding an itak(large knife, bolo) while a revolutionary flag is set behind him. There are three different denominations given for these stamps: 5 Centavos, 6 Centavos and 25 Centavos. Another thing that is unusual about this one is that it also tells that Helio Corvoisier S.A., Switzerland printed these stamps.

The next one shows a stamp with the picture of former Philippine President Ramon Magsaysay having a quoted statement written in Filipino with English translation saying:

"NANINIWALA AKO NA ANG TAONG KAPOS SA BUHAY AY DAPAT PUNAN SA BATAS."

Translated in English as:

-"I BELIEVE THAT HE WHO HAS LESS IN LIFE SHOULD HAVE MORE IN LAW."

This one was printed by the Government Printing Bureau, Japan and has the denomination of 6 and 30 Centavos.

For now, this is the only information I can provide and if anyone would like to share any other additional info about this and also about my previous posts, please you are very welcome to do so and I would gladly include it in my post. this is for the stamp category for now and I hope you'll appreciate it as well.