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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Clinker, post: 1600017, member: 6229&quot;]Their was panic in the Phillipines in 1942. The Japanese were coming! General Douglas MacArthur and the Americans were leaving!</p><p>A discussion was in order to determine what to do about the bullion the Phillipines&#039; government had stored away. Some of it was in their treasury and some was stored at the Manila Mint. Word had reached them about the Japanese forces&#039; practice of gathering up the existing coins of an occupied country and melting them to mold into ingots (or just filling barrels and crates with coins) and shipping them back to Japan for their war machine. </p><p>An agreement was reached for the Americans to take the bullion and some coins to the United States for safekeeping. The Phillipines government decided to gather up the remaining coins (from banks and businesses) and dump them in the bay to keep the Japanese&#039; hands off them.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Later, when MacArthur returned, he couldn&#039;t believe how much devastation the Japanese had wreaked in the Phillipines for the short time they were there. The mint in Manila was in such disrepair it would not be operable until 1946. In fact, the mint did not strike coins until 1948. The last time the mint struck coins was in 1941. In reclaiming the coinage dumped into the bay, they discovered much of it was worthless because of salt water corrosion. What to do? How could the government survive and get it&#039;s economy back into good working order?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The United States of America stepped up to plate: </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The Philladelphia Mint struck 21,198,000 1944 copper-nickel-zinc alloy five-centavos coins.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The Denver Mint struck 31,592,000 1944 silver ten-centavos coins and 28,596,000 1944 silver twenty-centavos coins. It also struck 137,000,000 1945 silver ten-centavos coins and 82,804,000 1945 silver twenty-centavos coins.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The San Francisco Mint struck 58,000,000 1944 bronze one-centavo coins, 14,040,000 1944 copper-nickel-zinc alloy five-centavos coins and 19,187,000 1944 silver fifty-centavos coins. In 1945 it struck 72,796,000 copper-nickel-zinc alloy five-centavos coins and 18,120,000 fifty-centavos coins.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>In 1947, the San Francisco Mint struck two commemorative coins for the Phillipines: a silver 50-centavos and a one pisa coin featuring General Douglas MacArthur.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>You remember that James Earle Fraser&#039;s (designer of Bison/Buffalo Nickel) wife (Laura Gardin Fraser) designed and created the models of several United States commemorative coins struck in the middle and late thirties. Well, she designed the two Phillipines General Douglas MacArthur coins too.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Ain&#039;t it great to be an American?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Clinker[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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