Rarest of the Philippine peso overstikes

krueger · February 20, 2021 12:02AM

Japanese WWII General Homma medals were overstruct on manila bay dump pesos.
Given to soldiers who conquered Corregidor to be worn around the neck

First strikes show some of the under coin peso letters and or date indicating a U. S. / philippine coin.
Not what the Japanese wanted. These are the very rarest of the HOMMA medals.
Later pesos were heated/melted a little till the inscriptions disappeared before striking.
I have only seen 3 of the ones where the under coin can be seen and none of those have a loop atop.
Two that I have seen were on a 1907-S and 1908-S philippine peso , the third I do not recall.
One of the great historical rarities of the U.S. Philippines numismatic period.

Krueger

DCW · February 20, 2021 7:07AM

Very interesting. I wish you had pictures to share to this thread

ricko · February 20, 2021 7:19AM

I did not know about these 'overstrikes'. Why were they called General Homma medals since he was convicted (right or wrong) of war crimes (notably the Bataan Death March). Cheers, RickO

kaz · February 20, 2021 7:30AM

Homma had these medals struck for presentation to soldiers under his command. They show a Japanese infantryman in full battle gear looking out over Manila Bay iirc. I used to see them on eBay from time to time, usually sellers in the Philippines.

Zoins · February 20, 2021 7:52AM

@ricko said:
I did not know about these 'overstrikes'. Why were they called General Homma medals since he was convicted (right or wrong) of war crimes (notably the Bataan Death March). Cheers, RickO

Interesting. So were these medals struck by or to honor a general convicted of war crimes against Americans and Philippinos to be presented to soldiers who committed the war crimes?

Here's some info from Wikipedia:

Differing sources also report widely differing prisoner of war casualties prior to reaching Camp O'Donnell: from 5,000 to 18,000 Filipino deaths and 500 to 650 American deaths during the march. The march was characterized by severe physical abuse and wanton killings. After the war, the Japanese commander, General Masaharu Homma and two of his officers were tried in United States military commissions on charges of failing to prevent their subordinates from committing war crimes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Death_March

Crypto · February 20, 2021 8:05AM

In group back in the day we would send a couple of teams every year to represent our Group in the annual baton death march memorial march. I never made it but it was a great honor locally to participate and we would often stagger the deployment rotations among the teams to open up the schedule for the guys selected. That calendar didn’t get modified for much let me tell you.

Zoins · February 20, 2021 8:14AM

@Crypto said:
In group back in the day we would send a couple of teams every year to represent our Group in the annual baton death march memorial march. I never made it but it was a great honor locally to participate and we would often stagger the deployment rotations among the teams to open up the schedule for the guys selected. That calendar didn’t get modified for much let me tell you.

Good to know. Reenactments are a great way to remember the past and those that served.

Do you know if any Japanese participated in the memorial marches? Also, I wonder what is the view of the march from the Japanese perspective?

After the Civil War, there were many Blue-Gray Reunions. I wonder if this happened after other wars.

Zoins · February 20, 2021 8:21AM

@DCW said:
Very interesting. I wish you had pictures to share to this thread

Here's one from Phil and team. I don't see any traces of the underlying coin on this one.

nd(1942) Medal Honeycutt-310 Basso-150 Ag General Homma RE No Loop (Regular Strike)

https://www.pcgs.com/cert/37259566

DCW · February 20, 2021 9:08AM

Man, I want one of these!

krueger · February 21, 2021 8:36PM

Poet-General Homma designed these medals and wrote the poem on the reverse.
still looking for the interpretation.. anyone speak Japanese?
Struck at the famous Philippine Zamora Minting operation.
As the story goes Homma brought Zamora a Bag Of Philippine Pesos.
!000 to a bag ?? only the first coins struck as trials came out showing the under coin.
so quite rare. (unknown how many) I have one with the Provenance of an older gentleman who worked for Zamora at the time!
it has the date and some letters visible. There are a debatable copper trial pieces many claim as counterfeit??
also several trial strikes on square pieces of lead. Again some debate authenticity. I have concerns with the smaller of the two only.
Hommas in silver and copper have been counterfeited.

Great story here~

Krueger

Zoins · February 21, 2021 9:04PM

This is a great piece, but regarding the thread title "Rarest of the Philippine peso overstikes" for the 3 showing the undertype, I just need to say that I have the following which is just one of 2 that are double struck

krueger · March 3, 2021 6:44PM

Picture of a Homma medal with under coin showing

krueger · March 14, 2021 10:00PM

Beautiful fantasy coin. An eye popper. Should be displayed somewhere.

Zoins · March 15, 2021 9:22AM

@krueger said:
Beautiful fantasy coin. An eye popper. Should be displayed somewhere.

Thanks. It's a wondereful piece.

Right now, it's displayed here, which is probably the most we can do with Covid.

It would be great to get TrueView and NuTilt photos for it.

pocketpiececommems · March 15, 2021 11:19AM

Information that I had never heard about. Learn something new everyday. In addition I hope that the Bataan Death March is never dropped from the history books in our schools.

Rarest of the Philippine peso overstikes

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