1861 The Kingdom of Italy

On 15 April 1861, Kingdom of Sardinia/Piedmont flag (the Italian tricolour with Savoy's coat of arms) was declared the national flag of the newly-formed Regno d'Italia (Kingdom of Italy). The Italian tricolour with Savoy's coat of arms was the Italian flag for 85 years, until the fall of the royal house of Italy.

Victor Emmanuel III

Victor Emmanuel III (1869-1947) was king of Italy from 1900 to 1946.

Victor Emmanuel was born on Nov. 11, 1869, in Naples. After his father, Umberto I, was assassinated in 1900, Victor Emmanuel succeeded to the throne

In 1896 Victor Emmanuel married Princes Elena of Montenegro. They had five children, among who were Umberto, the last legal king of Italy, and Mafalda, whose death in 1944 at the Buchenwald concentration camp enrolled her among the list of victims of that Fascist holocaust her father had helped to unleash upon Europe.

Victor Emanuel is remembered as a numismatist, having collected a vast number of coins and his collection preservered in the twenty volumes -

Corpus Nummorum Italicorum. Primo tentativo di un catalogo general delle monete medievali e moderne coniate in Italia o da italiani in altri paesi. 20 vols. A. Forni, Bologna, A reprint of Rome, 1910-1943. Hardbound. The most comprehensive collection of Italian coins dating from the Middle Ages up to 1900 ever published, a catalogue of the extensive collection of King Victor Emmanuel, now property of the government of Italy.

In Italy, the impact of World War I produced shifts in the political spectrum. On the left arose factions, some of whom sympathized with the Russian Bolsheviks. To the right emerged the figure of Benito Mussolini, once a prominent Socialist journalist, now the leader of ultranationalist called Fascists. World War II followed, until the capture of Mussolini and his death.

In 1943 Victor Emmanuel, while retaining his title, handed over what was left of the royal power to his son. In May 1946 he abdicated, but the monarchy outlasted him by less than a month. The former King was welcomed in excile by another numsmatist - King Farouk.

King Farouk the First of Egypt, reigned from 1936 until 1952. was a prolific collector.  His coin collection included an estimated 8,500 gold coins and medals.   King Farouk made most of his coin purchases in the 1940s, in an era when a numismatic dollar and an Egyptian pound went a long way.

Several American dealers supplied the king with coins, but they soon discovered that a downside to selling to him was that it usually took a long time to receive payment, especially if the invoice totaled more than $10,000. The larger invoices had to be routed to the Egyptian treasury, significantly increasing the time it took for the payment to be received, whereas the king had the authority to authorize payment of the smaller invoices. Not surprisingly, the American dealers soon learned to limit the invoices to less than $10,000. When all was said and done, King Farouk had amassed one of the largest, most important collections of coins in the history of numismatics.

On July 23, 1952, the military overthrew the government of King Farouk. Although he never reigned, his 17-year-old son succeeded him and became the last king of Egypt.

The famous Palace Collections of Egypt coin auction, featuring the numismatic collection of the former King Farouk of Egypt, took place at Koubbeh Palace, Cairo, in February and March 1954.

Victor Emmanuel died in exile in Egypt on Dec. 28, 1947.