Beginning with "Rex" and Italy's 10-centesimi...

Europa (ohne Euros) und Afrika - ab etwa 1500.
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villa66
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Beginning with "Rex" and Italy's 10-centesimi...

Beitrag von villa66 » So 10.07.16 06:58

A pleasant hour with a picture book of ocean liners from the the late-'20s to the mid-'50s is leading to several entries in my coin-notebook.

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x: The Italian ‘30s were tough, and the worn surfaces of this 1931 10-centesimi make it clear that this coin saw plenty of that Depression-marred decade. But Italia had its moments. In August 1931 the King—pictured on this humble copper—traveled with his Queen to Genova to attend the launch of the fast new ocean liner Rex. News of the big goings-on that day could have been had by radio, of course, but in those days the giant ocean liners made great newspaper copy. (The Rex especially—she was designed to win the famous “Blue Riband” for Italia.) So investing a pair of these 10-centesimi pieces in a copy of Milano’s widely-read Corriere della Sera (or a single 20-centesimi piece, maybe) would have come quite naturally. (03)
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villa66
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Re: Beginning with "Rex" and Italy's 10-centesimi...

Beitrag von villa66 » So 10.07.16 07:02

x: Another pair of 10-centesimi pieces like this one dated 1933 would have bought the issue of the Corriere della Sera that carried news of the Rex and her long-anticipated triumph: the winning of the westbound “Blue Riband” in August of 1933. The fastest liner on the Atlantic, and she was Italian! What an evening for reading a newspaper to the family—in Papa’s favorite corner, perhaps, in his favorite chair, under the shaded electric light. Or maybe the triumph was read out to the family in humbler settings, at the kitchen table perhaps, by the light of a kerosene lamp, or by candlelight even. And souvenirs of the great event? Or of the summer of ‘33? After all, Balbo’s seaplanes had flown across the Atlantic to the World’s Fair in Chicago only days earlier. Papa might well have passed out 1933 10-centesimi coins like this one as keepsakes. They’re unassuming coppers to be sure, but then they would have been bright and shiny, and they were the highest-value Italian coins widely available that year. (94)
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villa66
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Re: Beginning with "Rex" and Italy's 10-centesimi...

Beitrag von villa66 » So 10.07.16 07:12

Of course the fun of it is finding yourself in some unexpected places. Here was one of the detours, now also an entry in my notebook.

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x: A 1908 2-centesimi of the older VEIII type. (The new type 2-centesimi that debuted later in 1908 would be the last for the denomination, which was within a decade of its end.) By the time this piece appeared, its eroding purchasing power was making the 2-centesimi into something of a “kids’ coin.” That is, the kind of coin that would often make its way into the hands of a child because adults didn’t have a lot of use for it. But of course it’s different for kids. A child who could gather up five of these 2-centesimi pieces could put them to a new and exciting use in 1908—that was the year (late in December) that the comic strip(!) began making its first regular appearance in an Italian newspaper. The Corriere della Sera (of Milano) published a supplement for the kids known as the Corriere dei Piccoli, available as a stand-alone item at 10-centesimi the copy. Five 2-centesimi coins like this one, laid on a newsstand counter-top. Little coins, and little hands. But big eyes. (94)
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Re: Beginning with "Rex" and Italy's 10-centesimi...

Beitrag von villa66 » Mo 25.07.16 08:22

Please pardon the lack of photos, but it’s late and I need to get this into my notebook before bed.

v.

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x: Not two, but three 10-centesimi pieces—this one is dated 1938—would have been needed to buy a weekday copy of the Corriere della Sera in May 1938. (The newspaper’s price had increased from twenty centesimi to thirty the year before.) Italy’s fast ocean liner Rex was in the news again. But on reflection, it was more an American story, so I’ll pick it up with the three pennies that were necessary to buy a weekday copy of The New York Times (in NYC) in May 1938. Rex still had tremendous transatlantic cache at the time, despite having passed the “Blue Riband” to the French Normandie in ’35. Rex would unfortunately be sunk by the British in 1944, but she would reappear in day-to-day Italian life in 1963 with the debut of Peroni’s premium beer Nastro Azzurro. And so Rex and her record-breaking run of 1933 became a part of the Italian 1960s, when—in American eyes, anyway—Italy was just about the coolest place on the planet. (99)

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Re: Beginning with "Rex" and Italy's 10-centesimi...

Beitrag von villa66 » Mo 25.07.16 23:07

A slight detour to accommodate three U.S. pennies related to the S.S. Rex.

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Three cents—one here is dated 1938—were needed to buy a weekday copy of The New York Times (in NYC) in May 1938. (Locally sold copies of the NYT had gone from two cents to three at the beginning of the month.)

Italy’s fast ocean liner Rex was back in the news. She had been used in the internecine wrestling between the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army and the U.S. Army Air Corps.

Three early versions of the B-17 Flying Fortress were loaded with reporters both print and radio, and sent to intercept the Rex at sea—which they did, while the liner was still some 600+ miles from New York. The point was made, but the discussion continued, of course.

And there was more in the news in 1938: rising war-talk abroad, and at home the Depression seemed to be making a comeback. Cent production had been rising steadily since ’34, but dipped sharply in 1938. The three-mint total of these 1-cent pieces was less than half of what it had been the previous year.

v.
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Re: Beginning with "Rex" and Italy's 10-centesimi...

Beitrag von villa66 » Mo 08.08.16 10:57

When this 1967 500-lire departed the mint at Roma it was late for Italy’s circulating silver “Caravels”—1967 was the last date coined in circulation quantities. (The 500-lire coins dated 1968-2001 went into sets.)

But 1967 was early in our stay in Napoli and its environs, and Pop enjoyed spending these big silver coins. They exchanged for US$0.80, which was plenty, but their spending power seemed—well, was—much greater. I remember more than once Dad plunking down a 500-lire piece on our tiny table in the Esso station near Arco Felice and announcing we could stay as long as it lasted.

Pinball was the main attraction—not the three-ball, steeply-sloped, over-before-you-know-it modern games, but the five-ball, gently-sloped, settle-in-and-stay-awhile games of the old days. Manually-loaded balls too! One play for a 50-lire coin, three plays for a 100-lire piece.

There were popsicles at 30 lire each for the kids, a 100-lire ice cream for Ma, and for Dad a single bottle of beer.

Nastro Azzurro (“Blue Ribbon”) was his local favorite. A premium beer, about 120 lire. But Nastro Azzurro is no Italian cognate of America’s Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. No, no—and I wish Pop could have known this—Nastro Azzuro had been introduced just a few years before, in 1963, on the 30th anniversary of the fast ocean liner Rex winning the “Blue Riband” of transatlantic fame.

All that, and a tip, too…for just the price of this 1967 500-lire piece.

v.
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