Watch List notes:

Large lot of 100 Philippines (US administration, struck in San Francisco) 1 pesos, 1907-1910. KM-172. 2000 grams total. Generally F-VF, some corroded, some darkly encrusted but all with readable details and dated as follows: 1907 (37 pieces), 1908 (39 pieces), 1909 (17 pieces) and 1910 (7 pieces). During World War II these coins were dumped in Manila Bay by the U.S. Navy on the eve of Japanese occupation, so that the invaders would not capture the Philippine treasury. After the invasion the Japanese forced Filipino divers and then, after some of the Filipinos died from it, U.S. Navy divers (prisoners of war) to recover the coins, from a depth of 120 feet. The divers hid many of the coins they recovered and smuggled them back into the Philippine economy, effectively undermining the Japanese paper currency. Just as the Japanese figured out what was happening, a typhoon came through and ended the salvage operation. Further salvage efforts by the U.S. Navy and private interests after the war resulted in the recovery of millions of the coins, but more than half remain there to this day. Recovered from: "Manila Bay treasure," dumped off the Philippines in 1942 ($3000-4500)