The Vittorio Emanuele II 20 lira gold coin

The Vittorio Emanuele II 20 lira gold coin (picture from usagold.com) is a rare coin with just a few thousand being produced.

Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy, better known as Vittorio Emanuele II, lived from March 14, 1820 to January 9, 1878 and was the King of Piedmont, Savoy, and Sardinia from 1849 to 1861. On February 18, 1861, he assumed the title King of Italy to become the first king of a united Italy, a title he held until his death in seventeen years later.

He was born in Turin, the eldest son of Charles Albert, King of Sardinia, and Mary Therese of Hapsburg-Lorraine. He lived a few years of his youth at Florence with his father. Victor Emmanuel showed an early interest for politics, the military, as well as a certain aptitude towards sports.

Upon the creation of the Kingdom of Italy under Vittorio Emanuele II, a unified lira was established, at 4.5 grams of silver or 290.322 milligrams of gold. This was a direct continuation of the Sardinian lira.

There is an interesting old world European history which these types of coins represent and many people love to collect them, not just for the antique or rarity value but also for the historical interest.

The Vittorio Emanuele II 20 lira gold coin is a rarity these day as was its successor coin the Umberto I 20 lira simply because there are so few. Many were hoarded at the time and during the unification of Italy and became lost. From time to time a collection comes to light and there is usually a flurry of interest and buying until that hoard is split up and sold.

USAGold manages to acquire some from time to time for those interested. As they point out on their web site, "Scarce pre-1933 gold coins, like the Vittorio Emanuele II 20 lira, offer a largely unplumbed area of the gold market for appreciation potential. They offer two avenues for potential profit -- one should the price of gold rise, and another should the premium increase due to the trade off between scarcity and demand."

Seeking out and acquiring a Vittorio Emanuele II 20 lira gold coin is one of the truly great pleasures of rare coin collecting!