BREAKDOWN OF THE (16) COINS INCLUDED IN THIS COLLECTION:

Dear Collector:

Between 1903 and 1945, the U.S. Mint issued a unique series of bi-national coins; Philippine on the obverse; U.S. on the reverse.

These coins languished in obscurity until the turn of century, when they began gaining recognition as United States coins. The Red Book began increasing its coverage from nothing, to two pages to five, ten, and today, 26 pages. Then the U.S. Commemorative Society recognized the U.S. Philippine (US-PI) commems as U.S. Commemoratives.

Ditto for Coin World and Numismatic News. The auction houses like Stacks and Heritage are beginning to list them under U.S. coins.

And perhaps most important of all, PCGS and NGC now recognize them as U.S. coins.

So the collector base for these coins has grown from a few thousand to large multiples of that number, and appears to be rising sharply.

PCGS has graded only 898 United States-Philippine Pesos in MS-63 or better.

To put that in perspective, PCGS has graded 2,349 RED 1909-S VDB pennies in MS-63 RED or better.

In other words, the famous, rare 1909-S VDB penny is close to three times as common as all the dates for all the United States-Philippine Pesos COMBINED in MS-63.

These United States-Philippine coins are so rare because the humid Philippine weather corroded most of the already small mintages.

Then, when Japan invaded the Philippines during WWII, the U.S. dumped millions of coins into Caballo Bay to keep them out of the hands of the Japanese. Since then, numerous typhoons, hurricanes, and two nasty civil wars have further destroyed many collectible coins.

But perhaps most damaging of all was the desire of the Filipinos for nice, shiny coins. That resulted in the majority of many dates being cleaned, often harshly, making them uncollectible.

The end result is that several dates have no coins graded better than MS-63 to 65. And the coins in Gem MS-66 or better are stunningly rare. Only 117 coins in the entire series have been given such lofty grades.

Just a scant 36 of these are in the heart of the series dated before 1913.

I collected these coins for many years before I found my first MS-67, a 1907-S. A dealer bought it for about $1,000 and flipped it to me for $3,000.

That was many years ago. I now estimate the 1907-S in MS-67 is worth about $21,000.

This set, the best ever offered publicly, contains great specimens of the two rarest coins in the series. The famous Gold Wilson, which sold at auction in 2013 for $44,000 in PCGS AU-55. Only five were minted; two are damaged; and only one is known to be in better condition.

It also contains the equally famous 1906-S United States Philippine Peso. The condition is MS-61, one of only eight ever graded by PCGS in mint state.

The set contains eight super Gems: one MS-66; three MS-66+; three MS-67's; and one MS-67+ -- the top grade ever received by any coin in the series.

The set is the finest set of Pesos ever offered publicly. It far outstrips the Eliasberg Collection of United States-Philippine Pesos.