Italy where is Lt. Coleman Dewitt's AL Valore Militare in gold?

[ralstona]

In my post about my recent purchase of a silver al valore I mentioned that I live a few miles from the grave of Lt. Coleman Dewitt. He was one of 4 foreigners to earn a gold al valore. The other three were a pair of french pilots and czar Nicholas ii. He was shot down in 1918 during the battle of vittorio-veneto. He is buried right up the road from me in Tenafly, NJ. His commanding officer was Fiorello LaGuardia future mayor of NYC.

Anybody know where his gold medal is? What do you think it would be worth?

[Rogi]

In my post about my recent purchase of a silver al valore I mentioned that I live a few miles from the grave of Lt. Coleman Dewitt. He was one of 4 foreigners to earn a gold al valore. The other three were a pair of french pilots and czar Nicholas ii. He was shot down in 1918 during the battle of vittorio-veneto. He is buried right up the road from me in Tenafly, NJ. His commanding officer was Fiorello LaGuardia future mayor of NYC.

Anybody know where his gold medal is? What do you think it would be worth?

Factor in the rare value + him being a pilot = a lot of gold bricks hehehe (ok, ok bad joke)

First step is to find the medal (assuming it is engraved), after that you can probably haggle up a storm, but it won't be one of those "cheap" purchases I'm suspecting.

[claudio2574]

I can't imagine neither where the medal is, nor its value.

May be the family has it or somebody of them sold it in the past, who can know.

The value for this kind of medal changes depending on the collector, for sure you need at least three zeroes, may be more. A common bronze medal for an Italian (there were about 61000 of them) you can get for at least 250 euros. A gold medal (there were 368 of them) is quite impossible to find, because during the 30's Italy asked people to give gold to the country. A bronze medal ("bronze for gold") was given to the recipients of the gold who participate, most if not all did. The "bronze for gold" worth some 3000 euros. The remaining gold should be no more than a few units, so their value cannot be fixed in any way.

[ralstona]

Ah but he is American. No melting gold medals here. It also wasn't issued until 1921 when his body was returned to the usa. I will post a picture of his head stone when I get a chance. His being in the army (air corps in wwi, not independent air force yet) and living just a stone's throw from West Point, that seems a logical place to start. I am going to try and contact the museum there and see if they have any info.

[ralstona]

P.s. does anyone know where Nicholas II's gold al valore is? I wonder what the price on that would be?!

[ralstona]

I contacted the people at the Museum at West Point. They have no information about Lt. DeWitt or the whereabouts of his gold medal. Here is a link to a recent article that talks about how a museum in Vittorio-Veneto has named a wing after DeWitt.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2034937/posts

[Maringio]

As I know the Dewitt gold medal (given to his father in 1919) was in his mother ends at least at the end of Thirties. Dewitt was the lonely son of Dewitt family and when his father died the mother moved from Tenafly in 1936 to an unknown place. People from Tenalfy told me that they had relatives on the other side of the Hudson River and probly she moved there.  So the destiny of this medal is unknown.