claudio2574

Another cross, 4th Army, created in 1923:

Here is the cross for the third Army, the very first to be given (1918), officially awarded by the Duke of Aosta who was the commander of the army

Hmmm... probably not...

Hi. There tons of Italian medals about WW1. The most common are the four that any soldier received: Commemorative medal (with bars for each year 1915-1920. Not 1918, some fightings continued in the Balcans), Interallied, Unifying of Italy, War cross. Out of these 4, all the Armies had their unofficial ones, which were quasi-official. Here I propose some: Cross of the first Army: and its diploma:

It is a medal of the "Touring Club Italiano", made in 1922 to celebrate the 200000 associated. The Touring Club is still well alive and its maps are at the top of the civil cartography production in Italy, together with the "De Agostini". http://www.touringclub.it

The medal is official and has no relation to the Associazione delle Madri e vedove dei caduti

Hello, the medal was instituted in 1919 for the mothers of the fallen in WW1. Later it was assigned for the wars in Africa, Spain, Albania and WW2. Here are my medal and its diploma.

Hello everybody. I would like to introduce a medal + diploma which I've received a few days ago. This medal is the most recent one in the field of sports official medals in Italy. It was created in 2006 for coaches and is assigned in a very small amount every year: 100 bronze, 50 silver and 25 gold are the maximum allowed. Actually much less are given: the diploma has the date october 2013 and its number is 318 only. Hope you like it.

Never seen before...

You can try here: http://augusto.digitpa.gov.it The whole set of "Gazzetta Ufficiale" has been digitized for the years 1860-1946. Using the google engine (maurizio e lazzaro site:http://augusto.digitpa.gov.it) there are more than 3000 answers. I don't have infos for the years 1850-1860. Hope this can help.

According to Brambilla (Le medaglie italiane negli ultimi 200 anni, 2nd ed., 2012, page 371), these medals were instituted in 1862 by the Grand Duke Ferdinando IV as "ordine del merito civile e militare" (militar and civil order of merit). There were five classes: gold (big size), gold (small size), silver (big size), silver (small size), bronze (big size). I do not have infos about their value. For sure they are scarce.

May be I can add some infos. The cross "al merito di guerra" was instituted in 1918, with the blue/white/blue/white/blue ribbon. The marks are: B, F, M, R, J, S.J, F.M.L., H, A, P, FZ and crowned Z (royal mint, rare). Later, 1922, the same cross with a sword overimposed to the ribbon become the "croce al valor militare", the 4th class of military bravery medal. In 1941 the "croce al valore militare" had this same words written in the horizontal part of the cross. The sword over the ribbon remained. No marks. In 1942 the "croce al valore militare" had the words "al valore militare" in the horizontal part of the cross. The sword over the ribbon remained. No marks. In 1943 the "croce al valore militare" mainteined the same words as above, but the ribbon changed in blue, the same of the circular medals for military bravery. The sword was removed from the ribbon. All of the above medals belong to the kingdom, so the front side should be the one with the VEIII (Vittorio Emanuele III) monogram. Actually this rule was not used at all times. After the 1946, with the Republic, the cross remained very similar, having the RI (Repubblica Italiana) monogram instead of VEIII. There are some crosses with both monograms visible, as if they were remade in some way. The front side is the one with the star. When someone receives a second cross for the same war, his cross adds up a silver star over the ribbon. This is my father's medals bar, with two crosses for the WW2:

I have no experience of brass items, may be other collectors with greater knowledge can answer to your question

Alex, it should be a very late model, let's say WW2 period

Hi Trooper. I think it's not a fake, the Order of the Crown was so common that usually they are real items. "Suspension ring" should be the ring for the ribbon. The flat "object" of your order is called "attacco" in Italian, I don't know the English word for it. My idea for your item is a mid XX century, probably silver, but I can be wrong; better pictures could help a more precise analysis.

Well, it's not that easy. The oldest pieces were actually made in solid gold, but at the beginning of XX century the gilted silver became more common. The mark is not present all the times. The most recent items have the knots much thinner than in the past. The blue and the shape of the crown actually could identify the producer, even if I have no info about any list showing such a relationship. Pls take a look to the colors and the details of the knots in the following examples. This item comes from the well known Scarpa's collection. It is XIX century, solid gold, no mark. This one, officer degree, is also solid gold with the mark over it. Probably beginning of XX century Last: a mid XX century item, no marks. This one it is made of silver gilt:

Last, Great cross knight. Same plaque than the Great officer plus the sash: This sash comes from General Giuseppe Maria Vaccaro, commander of NATO AFSOUTH (1977-1979). According to the site of the Quirinale (Italian President of the Republic) there were 8830 recipients for this degree in the period 1951-2013.

Great officer (uses the same neck sign of the Commander plus this plaque): This diploma was awarded to the Italian ambassador in Argentina (1971-1976)

Commander:

Officer:

President Ciampi was the beginner of other changes in the Italian awards and logos. For example, he wanted the change of the Italian Olympic Committee from this to this The new President of Coni, whose name is Malago', declared that he would change it again because he does not like the current logo. Just to return to the argument of the OMRI, I propose here my items, all of the first version. Knight with its diploma:

Matthew, your infos are correct. The marks are from the royal mint. Nobody can't know if it was actually given to anybody, due to the blank reverse, but the medals given "sul campo" (=immediate aftermath of a battle) were unnamed. The medal is in good conditions, the ribbon could be better. The price could be 110-130 euros. Hope this can help Claudio

Just to add some entropy... Here is a "bronzo nemico" medal (type 2, Nelli) with the VIC ribbon. Not only the ribbon is wrong for this medal, it was sewed on the wrong side. However I believe it is original.

Hi Lambert. I suppose that your comments #132-134 are translations from my site http://www.faleristica.it . Type 2 and 3 medal are actually unofficial VIC. The difference from French ones is that they were never produced and distributed in significant numbers. Two years ago there was a discussion in an Italian forum about the medal. Here is the link: http://miles.forumcommunity.net/?t=44916321 In this topic, post #34, I wrote that the medal was sold for some 300 euros. Mistake. It was 400. Pls consider that Fiodor181 is a very well known collector, may be one of the top experts about Italian medals

Costantino Scarpa / Paolo Sézanne, together or not, published a set of books in the 80's for the Historical offices of Army, Navy and Air Force of Italy. Each volume is full of official references about the medals/ribbons and images. Usually they put only drawings and the photos (b/w) are the only poor element of each book. Here you can find some covers of their books. In the first book of this set the Interallied medal is described in detail (pages 125 and following). The table 25, hereafter, has the images of the three basic types. Only one of these types were actually accepted and it is the well known Italian interallied medal, with its 6 variants. The other two were proposed but never accepted, so there are really a few items of them. The picture shows also the type 5 (years 1915-1918) which is actually identical to the others in all its elements, but the years. Hope this can help.