Coin Collection: Improved Flora and Fauna

I remember back in the 90's, there was a time when we started opening all our coin banks and started depositing our savings in the bank. During this time the coins in our "piggy banks" were the Philippine Flora and Fauna series coins. It made me curious why we started opening all our coin banks so I asked my parents why we were counting all our money and they just told me that the government is going to change our money. Initially, I thought that the government was really going around changing peoples money to new and shiny ones. Little did I know that the government was going to demonetize the current series.

It was 1991 when Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas started minting the new series. I don't recall the first time I saw the new coins, but I do remember commenting that the government shrunk our coins. The 5 peso coin was reintroduced in this series and I remember liking this coin because it was thick and heavy. It was also made of brass so the color intrigued me during the time. I even thought it was made of gold. I wasn't particularly fond of the new series of coins and it wasn't long until the government again changed the coins, back in 1995, to a new series which we still use to this day.

I have completed the Improved flora and fauna series thanks to my cousins donation. He gave me his 1991, 5 peso coin and 25 centavo coin. All my coins in this series are from the original minting year of 1991. These coins were minted until 1994. The 1, 5, and 10 centavos were retained from the original flora and fauna series so I didn't include them here.

25 SENTIMO
This was really small compared to the original. One can easily lose this coin.

25 SENTIMO REVERSE
It retained its original design it was just smaller.
This was donated by my cousin, Darryll Biscaro.

50 SENTIMO OBVERSE
The original was nickel. This one is made of brass. The size is almost the same as the 25 sentimo.
People sometimes accidentally interchange the two coins when giving out change.

50 SENTIMO REVERSE
The eagle is still there. Same design. No mint errors this time around.

1 PISO OBVERSE
Same design just smaller in size.

1 PISO REVERSE
The tamaraw is still there. One thing I observed when this came out was that it sticks to magnets.
Apparently, the metal was changed to stainless steel. I don't know if it was really stainless,
because I remember seeing rusted coins at home.

2 PISO OBVERSE
This one had a major change. Its no longer the decagon shaped coin we once knew.
It was changed to round and size was reduced, but the design remains the same.

2 PISO REVERSE
Yup! this is the coconut where you can tie the tamaraw from the 1 PISO to make 3 PISO.
If you didn't find that funny, you have no sense of humor.
Even though the size was reduced, the detail on the coconut is still amazing.

5 PISO OBVERSE
This was the new coin of the series. Of the coins in this series, this has to be my favorite.
It looked like a shiny gold coin to me back then. I even had the idea that it might be made
out of real gold. It turns out there is 0 gold in this coin.

5 PISO REVERSE
It took me a while to finally realize that the plant on this coin our national tree, the Nara.
Those are its leaves and seed pods on the coin.
Thanks to my cousin, Darryll, for donating this coin to my collection.

There you have it. The Improved Flora and Fauna series coins of the Philippines. Personally, the only improvement in this series is the 5 Peso coin. These coins are not rare. They can be easily acquired from coin shops at a very cheap price. In my set, none of the coins were purchased because they are still common that one can find these in old coin banks. Check your old coin banks, you may even have a complete 1991 series in pristine condition. As time goes by, of course these will eventually become rare. So if you have one that looks new, keep it. Or you can donate it to my collection. I would gladly accept it.

Enjoy!