Military Valor Medal

Medaglia d’oro al valor militare (i.e., Gold Medal of Military Valour) was establish in 1793 by Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia of the Savoy house. It was given for outstanding gallantry in war by junior officers and soldiers. In 1815, Vittorio Emanuele I of Sardinia replaced it or renamed it the Military Order of Savoy. However, it wasn’t awarded very much until it was revived in 1833 by Carlo Alberto I. In 1861 his son, Vittorio Emanuele II, renamed it the Military Order of Italy.

During the time of the Kingdom of Italy, the medal was awarded to only three-hundred sixty-eight people. There were three that weren’t Italians: one of whom was an American pilot, DeWitt Coleman who was killed at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto during World War I. As an Italian-American, I take pride in that.

These stamps are to commemorate the hundred years since the medal had be reinstated by Carlo Alberto I. The stamps depict scenes of several soldiers fighting in Italy’s wars. I’m not sure if they’re showing specific soldiers, though. Most of them were used for ordinary postage. A few of them, though, were semi-postal stamps. In addition to the regular postal amount, there’s an additional charge which was used for some sort of chartiy – probably some pet project of the Fascist party of the time.

Note

It’s taken a while, but I recently bought the stamps to complete this page and the next one: they both were empty until now. I don’t find these stamps particularly interesting or attractive. That may have been why I took so long to get them. I’m glad to have them now, though.

Contains 11 spots: own 11 – 11 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Oct 28, 2022

Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot

own

catalog

subject

description

comment

Medal of Valor

1.1	✓	367	Infantry with Periscope The Flower of the Trench	15c (sep 1934) comm., green
1.2	✓	366	Carabinieri Police For Centuries Faithful	10c (sep 1934) comm., brown
1.3	✓	368	Grenadiers Three Centuries of Glory	20c (sep 1934) comm., red
2.1	✓	370	Bersagliere Indomitable Valor	30c (sep 1934) comm., brown
2.2	✓	369	Alpine Soldiers The Boots of Italy	25c (sep 1934) comm., green
2.3	✓	371	Infantry with Periscope The Flower of the Trench	50c (sep 1934) comm., purple

Semi-Postal

3.1	✓	372	Artillery Cannon Contributed to the Victory	75c (sep 1934) comm., red
3.2	✓	374	Cavalry on Horses The Impact that Overwhelms	1.75+1₤ (sep 1934) semi-postal, orange
3.3	✓	373	Militia To Us!	1.25₤ (sep 1934) comm., sky blue
4.1	✓	375	Forward Observer on Radio Heroic Collaboration	2.55+2₤ (sep 1934) semi-postal, purple
4.2	✓	376	Caring for Injured The Sublime Mission	2.75+2₤ (sep 1934) semi-postal, purple

Footnotes

Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.