Owner Comments:
Lyman Allen #11.13 (KM #170) - Mintage: 3,150,655
Until 1917, the San Francisco mint had been able to keep up with the demand for new Philippine coinage. With World War I intensifying, domestic demand for U.S. silver coinage rose and U.S. Mint resources became strained. The Philadelphia mint was producing more foreign coins than usual for Central and South American countries in order to fill the void left by the incapacitated European mints, and the San Francisco Mint was having to produce more domestic coinage to satisfy the increased war time demand.
The Numismatist magazine reported in September 1917 that:
Minting silver coins is proceeding in every mint in the country at from five to eight times the volume of past years … Forces at several of the mints probably will be augmented soon and may go on longer hours to meet the demand. In the Philippines, the increased world demand for raw materials such as hemp for rope, coconut oil, tobacco, and sugar all caused an unprecedented economic boom which increased the demand for circulating coinage in 1917. Silver prices began rising in 1916 and it seemed very likely that they would cause the bullion value of the reduced size and weight silver coinage to exceed it's face value. This happened briefly in September 1917 when the bullion value of the 20 centavos coin rose to 21 centavos. This caused hoarding by the public and possibly exportation and melting of all denominations of silver coinage. The coin shortage became so severe that the Philippine National Bank even printed fractional currency notes in denominations of 10, 20, and 50 centavos in the fall of 1917. I was fortunate enough to obtain a full set of these notes in 2017, and the 20 centavos note, dated November 20, 1917 is shown below:
Silver prices receded slightly for the next seven months, but again rose past the par value of the silver coinage in April 1918 and remained above par value until June 1920. Silver prices peaked in January 1920 at which time the 20 centavos coin had a bullion value of 26 centavos. Laws were enacted by the Philippine legislature to keep the coinage in the county. Enforcement was actually very effective and relatively few of the silver coins of the period were exported or melted locally. Hoarding was however a significant contributing factor to the disappearance of circulating silver coinage.
Another little known fact is that from 1917 through 1941, virtually ALL silver coinage struck at the mints in San Francisco and Manila was recoineed from reduced size and weight silver pesos that had been struck between 1907 and 1912. Roughly 1.7 million of these silver pesos where melted and recoined by the San Francisco mint in 1917 alone.
Many sources state that the reason the Mint of the Philippine Islands (aka Manila Mint) was built was because World War I made it difficult to ship new coinage from San Francisco to the Philippine Islands. While this may be true, it was not the primary motivation for creating a mint on Philippine soil. Strained resources at the U.S. mints, rising silver prices and an economic boom during World War I were the real drivers. It is ironic that the very month the new mint opened in 1920, the economic boom had ended, the Philippines was experiencing a serious financial crisis, and the price of silver had fallen below the par value of the coinage.
Varieties
ALLEN-11.13 - Normal date. (this coin)
This Coin
High grade specimens remain available and I was pleased to find this one. It is reasonably well struck, but has light contact marks and some odd toning.
References- Nagano, Y. (2015). State and Finance in the Philippines 1898-1941 (First ed.). Singapore: NUS Press (National University of Singapore).
- Perez, G. S. (1921). The Mint of the Philippine Islands - Numismatic Notes and Monographs No. 8. New York: American Numismatic Society.
- Phillips, F. H. (1976, March). Philippine Coins, The Forgotten U.S. Coinage. (N. N. Harris, Ed.) The Numismatist, 89(3), pp. 525-528.
Date acquired: 12/16/2012 (already graded by PCGS)
Rev. 1/14/2018