Philippine gold coin from 1946 --- ???

botanist

A U.S. stamp dealer is offering a coin on ebay supposedly from Philippines, supposedly gold, closing in about 13 days from now, buy-it-now for $3900, or make offer. The coin has been listed on ebay since at least March 14th 2010, and two persons have made offers. It's a strange item, copying the design of the Queen Isabel II gold coins of the 1860s, but dated when the U.S. granted formal independence July 4th 1946, and with a denomination of 2 "D" (= dollars?). The inscriptions are in Spanish, and include the statement it is 91% gold. It's not in the reference book Coins, Medals and Tokens of the Philippines by Aldo Basso (1968). Among the questions I have are what entity issued this coin (evidently not any Philippine government)? Is it really 91% gold, and what are the weight and dimensions (no descriptive information is provided in the auction, despite the high selling price)? What's going on here? LINK

SaorAlba

The lettering suggests it is something created as some souvenir, probably to pawn off on unsuspecting American servicemen in the Philippines ca. mid 1960's. BTW the seller cannot even bother to take all the stamp collecting nonsense out of the auction, goes to testify how careless he is about a $3900 item(ie he has his doubts too)

WillieBoyd2

Has anyone here written to the seller asking about this item?

It is certainly a strange one!

krueger

$2 dollar gold token made by someone for philippine independence day 1946

Basso/ 1st edition/ page70/ #300
Basso / 2nd edition/ page 82/ #250

cookiejar collectibles sold one in their last auction at $200. !! not that rare or desirable

http://mysite.verizon.net/cookiejarpi

Krueger

spoon

I sure hope it doesn't have any original gum on it!

botanist

Good work Krueger, you nailed it.