unclemac
Gold Member
- Oct 12, 2011
- 6,987
- 6,849
- Primary Interest:
- Beach & Shallow Water Hunting
I can keep this up all day! Does anyone else have some neat stuff to share? I love hearing stories on odd or historic coins. This next coin has a great story. When the Japanese were close to taking the Philippines, MacArthur was confronted with a problem... what to do with the Philippine cash reserves. The paper money was burned but the silver was the issue. Most of the gold and a tiny bit of silver was taken to San Fran by submarine but the bulk of it, $8,500,000, was packed in wooden crates and dumped in a crater, 120 feet deep off Corregidor. The Japanese were not very successful at recovering it and after the war another attempt was made to recover more. Even so only so much could be recovered before the cost outweighed the reward. So, long story short, there is still some $4,000,000 still down there. This coin shows a lot of "shipwreck effect" and comes from that event.