Hobbies and Collection: Mayo 2011

These are one silver peso coins when the Philippine Islands became a US Commonwealth, and the arms of the Commonwealth were adopted. This seal is composed of a much smaller eagle with its wings pointed up, perched over a shield with peaked corners, above a scroll reading "Commonwealth of the Philippines". It is a much busier pattern, and widely considered less attractive.

These coins were minted at Philadelphia, San Francisco, Denver, and (after it was opened in 1920) Manila mints. Most of the Manila mintages occurred after 1925. They have S, D, and M mint marks. Several proof sets were made for collectors, from 1903 to 1908. These were unpopular at the time, and many were later broken up and released into circulation. Some coins were minted in extremely small numbers (as few as 500 pieces occurred in 1905, 1906, & 1908). Also, many were lost when the defenders of Corregidor threw them into the ocean, rather than surrender the Philippine national treasury to the Japanese. Only about 80% were ever recovered, and many of those were badly corroded. However the rarest coins are the 1906-s peso with as few as 250 coins in existence; but the rarest is the 1910-s Ten Centavaos with the only known coin which was on display at the Manila mint, being lost due to the bombing of Manila in 1945 as that the mint building was completely destroyed.
1 Peso Silver Coin