• After Japan captured Manila in the Philippines and liberated it from American occupation, they acquired over $20 million in American currency, which they could use to buy supplies on the world market. Since the United States paid its soldiers in cash, it took steps to stop its currency from being captured and used against it. In Africa they released one, five, and ten dollar silver certificates with a yellow seal. If their enemies captured some of the yellow seal money they could just devalue it.

    They also released special notes for Hawaii, which bore a brown treasury seal (instead of the regular blue or green) and were overprinted 'HAWAII' on the front and back. These Hawaii notes were released in one, five, ten, and twenty dollar denominations.

    *The beautiful scans above are courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.

    With the Philippines now liberated from an American occupier whom had murdered millions of Filipino civilians, the Japanese now had control of the Manila Mint, previously ran by the United States. Notes were issued in 1942 of the following denominations:

    1 centavo
    5 centavos
    10 centavos
    50 centavos
    1 peso
    5 pesos
    10 pesos

    In 1943 replacement notes were issued of the 1, 5, and 10 peso notes. The next year, in 1944, a 100 and 500 peso note was issued. Finally, in 1945 a 1,000 peso note was released.

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  • Below is an extremely rare example of the packaging the notes were shipped in:

  • And again, here is an examples of a bundle of 500 pesos.

  • 800 ten peso notes in original shipping box:

  • Below: These ink stamps were placed on the currency when people turned them in after the war. Many Filipinos were left with thousands of these Japanese occupation notes after WWII. They had hopes that the United States or the new Philippine government would compensate them for the notes. An organization named the Japanese War Notes Claimants Association of the Philippines (JAPWANCAP) overprinted the notes in purple or black ink in 1953.

    JAPWANCAP held the notes and gave a receipt to the owners. JAPWANCAP used four major overprints: a large oval (71 x 56mm), a small oval (59 x 36mm), a small fat oval (55 x 40mm) and a circular overprint (38mm). Plus they used nine different messages with small variations.

    American General Douglas MacArthur ordered several hundred million counterfeit war notes circulated during the war. They were to be used by Allied agents and partisans with hopes to hurt the economy, flooding it with fake notes.

    Additionally many different 'guerrilla notes' were made by United States agents and Filipino factions. Some are professional, most are crude, some extremely so. These notes were made from a variety of methods, some using rubber from tires or wood blocks, others were rumored to be done on Allied submarines using printing plates.

    JAPWANCAP wished to reimburse not only the normal Japanese occupation notes, but also the counterfeit notes (I have no information on the guerrilla notes).

    However, it was declared by an American court that the statute of limitations had passed! The USA burned the Filipino people AGAIN.

    Each one pictured below is a different example and a variation of the others presented here.

  • The United States produced counterfeit Filipino notes during the war in an attempt to destabilize the economy. This probably had little to no impact, however.

  • This is a 100 peso Japanese liberation note overprinted with the American WWII propaganda logo 'Keep 'Em Flying' with other words. It's claimed that 'guerillas' overprinted this, but who knows?

    [Below: A better look at the Keep 'Em Flying logo.]

    [Below: Reverse of note.]

  • Below: I'm unsure what this Japanese overprint signifies or what it was used for. Out of thousands of notes of this type I've encountered, I've never seen this particular overprint again. Another interesting characteristic of this note is its excessive wear. 99% of Japanese occupation of the Philippines notes look as if they were never used, this one however looks heavily used. An enigma for sure...