Proper English?

[-Perception-]

"There was an amount dropped."

This alters the denotation of the original sentence too much to still be representative in my opinion, "an amount of x" being the important part.

[Dom]

Right, I think that any wise person would know it is "was"

[Wes]

Were is correct according to the English dictionary, however either can be used. Were is the most formal, whereas was is less formal.

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[Fred_Frederickus]

A poll has been added.

[Mythik]

"Were" in my opinion.

[Hypernoma]

I'm studying just now so don't have time to type out a whole nonsense on subjunctive clauses, however suffice to say the correct word in old english in this case is "was". That being said, both was AND were are correct with present english and the gradual decay of the subjunctive tense. This is however rather silly to fight over.

[Maroon]

(It actually is "were", like in "There were "many"/"an unbelievable amount of" presents dropped", since "an amount of" is quite synonymous to "many".)

It's on!
In the case of "an unbelievable amount of", the verb is directed towards an amount, which is singular, so it should be "was", while the case of "many presents" directs the verb to the word "presents", which is plural, so it should be "were".
In the case of "were", the subject is "presents", while in the case of "an unbelievable amount of" the subject is "amount".
/grammarlesson

[-Perception-]

Hm, according to someone I've just asked (he is studying anglistics), amount is not even the correct word when used in this context, since it ought to relate to sth immeasurable, so maybe replace it with quantity or number.. 

Anyhow, I am afraid Hyper might be on to sth there.

[Fred_Frederickus]

Do you prefer "a shit load" instead of an amount?

[Fred_Frederickus]

Perception I don't think anglistics is even a word buddy...  8)

"The study of the English language and of literature written in English."