500 Pesos Treasury certificate, Green back

The Philippine Islands Treasury Certificate series of the 1920s occupied an awkward constitutional position: issued under American colonial administration by a local Bureau of the Treasury, yet designed, engraved, and printed entirely by the USBEP in Washington — the same shop producing U.S. Federal Reserve Notes simultaneously. The 500 Peso denomination was never intended for ordinary retail use; at that value it functioned almost exclusively in interbank settlements and large commercial transactions between Manila trading houses.

Pick 72 is among the rarest survivors of the series. High-denomination notes of this type were heavily targeted during the Japanese occupation for confiscation and destruction, and the subsequent 1944 guerrilla currency chaos eliminated much of what remained in circulation.