1903 - 1936: Minted at the San Francisco Mint (Also Philadelphia & Manila)
April 20 to April 30, 1942: 17,000,000 pesos dumped into Manila Bay.
Salvage operations began as early as May 1942 by Filipino divers under the control of the Japanese Navy recovering 108,000 pesos. In *The Great Manila Bay Silver Operation* , Bosun’s Mate First Class Morris “Moe” Solomon told the story of how captive U.S. navy divers disrupted Japanese recovery.
* John G. Hubbell, The Great Manila Bay Silver Operation, Readers Digest, April 1959; Vol. 74, No. 44
The Japanese recovered about 2,000,00 pesos, leaving about 15,000,000. See corregidor.org/chs_trident/trident_02.htm
In 1947, two Americans got a salvage contract from the Philippine government, but were able to raise only about 500,000 pesos. Since then, millions of pesos have been recovered.
These appear regularly on eBAY at about $7.50 plus shipping. (9/15/07)
Most are dated 1907-S. 1908-S and 1909-s are common. Occasionally pre-1907 pieces are found.
1910-S though 1912-S and 1906-S are scarce proportionately to their scarcity within the series.
| A small hoard (340 pieces) was counterstamped in 1967 as Anguilla "Liberty Dollars".
This stamp demonstrates the appearance of these salvage pesos as early
as 1967. (The divers** who reported on salvage operations referred
to black encrustation as early as 1947, however, I am aware of no photographic documentation.) ** Clark, Allen B. (with G. Lou Clark) We Found the Lost Millions of Manila Bay. Saturday Evening Post. Sept. 13, 1952. p.20. |  |
My feeling is that the overwhelming majority of the surviving Philippine Pesos from the 1907 - 1936 period were part of the dumping / salvage operations.
The 1936 Manila Mint commemorative series deserves special mention.
The pesos, KM 177 and KM 178, were each minted in quantities of 10,000, and 50 centavo had 20,000 pieces struck. From their relative scarcity as "non-salvage" condition, I presume that most were not sold at the time of issue, but instead were stored, and later dumped into the harbor with the standard issue pesos.
Mint state sets, while they appear on the market with some regularity, are probably at least as scarce as he scarcest 'standard' U.S. commemorative. By contrast, their "salvage" counterparts appear frequently on eBay, and before eBay, were a regular feature of dealer stocks.
Because most of the commemoratives show a similar pattern of corrosion, they were probably stored together and the time of minting and likely went overboard in the same location, and were recovered at the same time. From their relative availability, it is reasonable to believe that most of the peso and 50 centavo pieces were recovered.
Although most of the "salvage" pesos are reasonably distinctive, in the case of the 1936 commemorative pieces, there is no question as these show obvious sign of immersion and cleaning, as opposed to the "non-salvage" pieces which will all be (at least virtually) uncirculated.
Also worthy of mention is the Wilson "Dollar" KM 449 (Silver) and KM 450 copper.
Issued in 1920 to commemorate the opening of the United States Mint in Manila, Philippine Islands
on July 16, 1920, the only overseas mint established by the United States.
2200 silver pieces and 3700 copper were authorized. Judging from the rarity of these pieces today, a minority of the were obtained by collectors at the time of issue. Again, the remainder were likely in the Philippine treasury at the time of the dumping operation.
Unlike the 1936 commemorative pieces, these pieces do not appear too often, even in salvage condition.
I have seen more copper "salvage" pieces than silver. In non-salvage condition, the copper pieces are considered far scarcer than the silver, likely indicating that the copper version was predominantly not collected at time of issue, and later dumped in proportionately greater quantitites.
A pair appears below.
