PHILIPPINE COLLECTORS FORUM Will Meet at the 2025 ANA World’s Fair of Money

Philippine Collectors Forum Will Meet at the 2025 ANA World’s Fair of Money

(Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)—The Philippine Collectors Forum will hold its annual gathering at the American Numismatic Association’s summer convention (the World’s Fair of Money) on Friday, August 22, 2025, in Oklahoma City. The PCF meeting is free and open to the public. Highlights include custom ANACS-slabbed commemorative coins for the first fifteen attendees, Philippine money–related door prizes, and 1940s Japanese Invasion currency from World War II. Educational features include a keynote lecture, market and auction reports, and book reviews. Participants are invited to share research updates in the fields of Spanish and American Philippine coins, tokens, medals, and paper money.

“The field of U.S./Philippine currency has been very active in recent years,” said PCF Secretary John Riley. “Not only are prices in the market rising, but researchers in the United States as well as the Philippines have been studying the historical record and publishing interesting new finds. Philippine coins have been newly featured in major hobby publications including the Greysheet and the Cherrypickers’ Guide to Rare Die Varieties. Paper money, too, has seen a vibrant market and significant new publications in recent years. This is an exciting time to be a collector.”

Dr. Earl Honeycutt, coauthor with Sandy Lichauco of Philippine Medals and Tokens 1780–2024 (fourth edition, 2024), notes that it’s not only coins that have seen fresh interest lately. The market for Philippine tokens and medals has also blossomed. Ongoing research has added hundreds of additional pieces to the latest edition of Honeycutt’s groundbreaking book. “There are opportunities for smart buyers as well as sellers,” he said.

The keynote speaker of the 2025 Philippine Collectors Forum is award-winning author Dennis Tucker, a Life Member of the Filipino American National Historical Society and former numismatic specialist on the U.S. Treasury Department’s Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee. He will present a history and appreciation of Melecio Figueroa, the designer of the 1903–1945 Philippine coinage minted under American administration.

In his talk, titled “Melecio Figueroa: The Saint-Gaudens of the Philippines,” Tucker will make the case that Figueroa’s work is far more innovative and historically significant than he’s been given credit for. “Every American coin collector who knows Charles Barber, George T. Morgan, and Augustus Saint-Gaudens should also know their Philippine contemporary, Melecio Figueroa,” Tucker said.

The Philippine Collectors Forum is a club member of the congressionally chartered American Numismatic Association. Membership in the PCF is free, and attendees don’t have to pay the convention’s entrance fee to attend the PCF’s 2025 annual meeting. It will start at 1:00 pm in Room 106 (first floor, at the far-right end of the lobby) of the Oklahoma City Convention Center.