Cebu Province 1941 Provincial Issue

Reference: "Philippine emergency and guerrilla currency of World War II" by Shafer Neil.

Cebu is a long, narrow province in the central Philippines between Negros and Bohol. It was at Cebu City that the seat of government for the Philippine Commonwealth was established after the fall of Manila to Japanese forces at the end of 1941. Here the government authorized emergency paper currency, mostly to meet the expenses of sustaining its armed forces.

This issue is rather well printed and shows better techniques of currency manufacture. Many features are clearly defined. The 1 Peso was never hard to find except in choice condition. Most of the rest used to be more difficult to obtain until the big hoard appeared; since then just about all have been much more readily available, and generally in decent condition. Issuing body was the Cebu Currency Committee.

General Characteristics:

Face: Plate print, three printed signatures of the Committee as follows:

-S.C. Miranda, Actg. Manager P.N.B. Cebu, Chairman

-F.I. Reyes, Fiscal, Member

-R.T. del Bando, Auditor, Member

Lowest four values have one red printed serial number; the rest( 1 Peso and higher ) have two. Title is EMERGENCY CIRCULATING NOTE OF 1941.

Back: Plate print, place of issue and date shown.

Paper: Yellow for the four low values, rather heavy white for the rest.

What I'm going to share are only the larger denomination since I have not acquired yet the lower denominations which includes the 5c, 10c, 20c, and 50c.

1 Peso:

Size: 128/59mm.

Colors: Blue face, light orange back. Design of this note closely follows the 1917 PNB emergency note(refer for listings under PNB emergency note for info).

5 Pesos:

Size: 156-158/68-69mm.

Colors: Black print, green background. Paper for this note seems especially poor. A specimen with vertical watermark lines is reported.

10 Pesos:

Size: 156-158/68-69mm.

Colors: Black print, yellow background. Also reported on paper with vertical watermark lines.

20 Pesos:

Size: 156-158/68-69mm.

Colors: Black print, orange background. This note is known on plain paper or with watermark as described for the previous two notes.

I hope you've learned something from this post and somehow gave some interest about the paper money here in the Philippines.

1920 50 Pesos

Today I'll be sharing another hard to find. Although this got major damage as you can see that it is already separated and only joined by an old tape.

The man on the portrait is Gen. Henry Ware Lawton.

According to Wikipedia, Henry Ware Lawton (March 17, 1843–1899) was a highly respected U.S. Army officer who served with distinction in the Civil War, Apache War, Spanish-American War and was the only U.S. general officer to be killed during the Philippine-American War. Lawton was very popular among his men and the general public and was so well-respected in the Philippines that his image appeared on Filipino currency during the 1920s(as a reference to this note shown).

This note reads: THE PHILIPPINE NATIONAL BANK WILL PAY THE BEARER ON DEMAND FIFTY PESOS IN LAWFUL CURRENCY OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. Series of 1920.

Underneath the red seal(with the words MANILA P.I. MAY 2, 1916 written) says the ff: ISSUED UNDER THE PROVISIOMS OF ACT 2612 OF THE PHILIPPINE LEGISLATURE AS AMENDED BY ACT 2747.

At the back side of the note, the round design in the middle also got some writings in a circular pattern. Although it is hardly readable due to the damage that was done, it seems to have the same text from the back of the 1916 5 Peso note that reads: THIS NOTE IS RECEIVABLE BY THE PHILIPPINE GOVERNMENT IN PAYMENT OF ALL TAXES, DUES, OR OTHER CLAIMS DUE OR OWING TO SAID GOVERNMENT AND IS EXEMPT FROM ALL TAXES.

Hope to have another one with a better condition someday, but for now I'm satisfied for what I have.

"Offset" Error on 10 Peso English Series Note

This error not that is shown in this post is called an "offset print". According www.usmintquarters.com this type of error look like one side of the note "bled " through the other side. The offset or Wet Ink Transfer places a mirror image on the wrong side of the note. Often called "blanket impressions" Some printing errors are more distinguishable that others.

As you can see the front side of this English series(Garcia signed) 10 pesos looks normal but on the other side, there are some noticeable parts of the note that gave the impression of the ink bled to the other side.

Just to be sure that this note got an authentic error and being quite skeptic about it, I've let my collector friend, Mr. Coolpit to have it check since he knows more about such things. Thankfully he identified what type of error it was and told me that it commands a higher price especially with its condition that is almost uncirulated.


Here are some of the closer detail of the error found.

Notice how the border of the other side of the note appears(dark like spots) partially on this side.



Here is the closer view in middle part of the note where the words TEN PESOS shows partially as well.



Also the lower part having almost the same occurrence of the upper part of the note.


I've decided to keep this note since to me it is some sort of a prize. It shows that even with the modern equipment in producing paper money during that time, still in rare cases, such mistakes appear. It is good to see something like this came out, otherwise according to Mr. Coolpit error notes are not really qualified for circulation and was usually destroyed as a defective currency.

I would like to say many thanks to my Braingle friends who decide to drop by and visited. For those others who are curious to what I'm talking about you can visit http://www.braingle.com/ and perhaps that would spark some interest as well. For me, it is a site where one can interact and make friends from different parts of the world.

You can also give comments and suggestion on how I can still improve on what I'm doing. Thanks for reading and that's all for now.