when i was still working, i used to travel around the country and try to get some coins.. but to my regret nowadays, i used to get only the big and small silver pesos (1903 to 1912) and disregard the smaller coins.. it was nice tosee a lot of coins in davao.. try to walk around the main street facing the big city hall and a lot of watch repair store got coins out there.. good luck..

I agree Al, most of coin sellers in the provinces, especially in Visayas and Mindanao, are generally the watch repair stalls/stands. If im not mistaken this was the same with Manila 30 +(?) or so years ago, so u still see those watch repair stands w/ signs of " bumibili ng Alahas, Ginto, Pilak", still much around.

Years ago, i was not much into coin collecting yet so i did not seek them out really when i visited theVismin region then.

I might be doing rounds of Vismin again in a few months, so I will have the chance to see what's the coin scene there is now.

Cheers

Last year i was in manila and a taxi driver bring me to a place where many of those watch repairs was. But the most coins there was fake. I bought only 3 Morgan Dollars and 1 Trade Dollar. From the provinces my favorite is Dumaguette. There is a young coin seller who has everytime some good ones and mostly cheap.

i was in dumaguete three times (2009, 2008, 2007) already and was not able to find good coins although there were some common coins i saw out there (1944 and 1945 uspi silver coins).. you were lucky to find a good seller.. and yes there are lots of fake coins here in manila and elsewhere so we must be always on the lookout for those things.

In my experience, it is more expensive buying coins in the province than here in Manila. People there are too optimistic about the price of coins. Most of those watch stands are already even aware of some of the rare coins such as the 1906-S peso.

Still, good coins are already getting scarce and most coins circulating in the market are already modern Chinese fakes.