One Philippine penny can be worth more than two million United States dimes, each equivalent to 10 cents.

The recent auction of a vintage Philippine penny by Leon Gallery Fine Art and Antiques in Makati City fetched an unbelievable P1.4 million, 24 Oras Weekend reported.

The brass "barilla" was reportedly the most expensive sold at the auction, where four other such coins were offered.

The amount was unsurprising, though, as the barilla was the first penny minted in the Philippines. It features the coat of arms of Manila in 1728, making it 295 years old. From the word barilla came the Filipino word for change, "barya."

The barilla's value was also higher than the hundreds of thousands of dimes stolen by four thieves from a tractor-trailer in the United States in April.

The truck driver loaded the dimes at the US Mint in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and parked the truck in a Walmart carpark in Northeast Philly to sleep before driving to the Federal Reserve Bank in Miami, Florida.

While the driver was asleep, thieves forced the back of the truck open with bolt cutters. They took recycling bins nearby and used these to transfer the coins from the truck to their getaway van, the New York Post reported.

The heist was caught on a CCTV camera, including the rushing thieves' spilling of thousands of dimes on the pavement.

Police later counted $234,500 in dimes stolen by the gang that was notorious for targeting big and small cargo trucks in the state. Weeks later, the thieves were tracked down as they exchanged the dimes for dollars at Coinstar machines in Maryland and four banks across suburban Philadelphia, according to NYP.

The four realized the folly of stealing, counting, and laundering coins as they managed to exchange only $5,200 worth of dimes out of the $234,500  they stole, according to their indictment papers cited by NYP.

Suspects Rakiem Savage, 25; Ronald Byrd, 31; Haneef Palmer, 30, and Malik Palmer, 32, are now in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and face charges of conspiracy, robbery, and theft of government money, NYP reported.   WJG @tribunephl_wjg