Collectors Pay For Error On Money

Collectors pay for error on money

Tue Dec 20,10:37 AM ET

MANILA (Reuters) -What's in a name? Plenty for collectors driving up the price of a small number of Philippine 100-peso bills with the president's name misspelled.

The notes, worth about $1.87, are legal tender but their relative rarity attracted starting bids of $9.99 each in a sale of four of them on Internet auction site ebay.com due to end later Tuesday.

The central bank said in November an "insignificant" number of the bills -- with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's last name spelled "Arrovo" with a "v" -- were released.

Demand is outpacing supply.

"There are, in fact, orders from our store but we do not know where to get more of the bills," the Businessworld newspaper quoted Liza Rama Esposo, an antiques dealer in Manila, as saying.

The peso, often hurt by political uncertainty, has been the best-performing currency in Asia this year, trading at six-month highs around 53.4 to the dollar.