(sold for $9.0)

1795, Sardinia, Victor Amadeus III. Nice Copper 5 Soldi Coin. VF+

Condition: VF+
Mint Years: 1795
Mint Place: Torino
Reference: KM-51.
Denominations: 5 Soldi
Diameter: 24.1mm
Material: Copper
Weight: 5.2gm

Obverse: Bust of Victor Amadeus III right. Date below.
Legend: VICT.AMED.D.G.REX.SARD. 1795

Reverse: Standing armoured and helmeted figure of Saint Maurice, holding flag.
Legend: S.MAURITIUS . PAT . TOT . DIT .
Exergue: SOL . 5

Saint Maurice (also Moritz, Morris, or Mauritius) was the leader of the legendary Roman Theban Legion in the 3rd century, and one of the favorite and most widely venerated saints of that group. He was the patron saint of several professions, locales, and kingdoms. He is also a highly revered saint in the Coptic Orthodox Church. According to the hagiographical material, the legion, entirely composed of Christians, had been called from Thebes in Egypt to Gaul to assist Maximian to defeat a revolt by the bagaudae. However, when Maximian ordered them to harass some local Christians, they refused and Maximian ordered the unit punished. Every tenth soldier was killed, a military punishment known as decimation. More orders followed, they still refused, partly because of Maurice's encouragement, and a second decimation was ordered. In response to their refusal to use violence against fellow Christians, Maximian ordered all the remaining members of the 6,666 unit executed. The place in Switzerland where this occurred, known as Agaunum, is now Saint Maurice-en-Valais, site of the Abbey of Saint Maurice-en-Valais.

Kingdom of Sardinia, also known as Piedmont-Sardinia or Sardinia-Piedmont, was the name given to the possessions of the House of Savoy in 1723 (or in 1720 according to the international law), when the crown of Sardinia was awarded by the Treaty of The Hague to King Victor Amadeus II of Savoy to compensate him for the loss of the crown of Sicily to Austria, retaining in that way the title of king. Besides Sardinia, the new kingdom included Savoy, Piedmont, and Nice; Liguria, including Genoa, was added by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Officially, the nation's name became Kingdom of Sardinia, Cyprus and Jerusalem, the House of Savoy maintaining a national claim to the thrones of Cyprus and Jerusalem, but both had long been under Ottoman rule. During most of the 18th and 19th centuries, the political and economic capital of the kingdom was Turin in Piedmont on the Italian mainland. In 1860, Nice and Savoy were ceded to France as a price paid for French consensus and help to unify Italy. In 1861, the Kingdom of Sardinia became the founding state of the new Kingdom of Italy, annexing all other Italian states. The Kingdom so continued in perfect legal continuity with the actual Italian state, to which it transferred all its institutions.

Victor Amadeus III (Vittorio Amadeo Maria; 26 June 1726 - 16 October 1796) was King of Sardinia from 1773 until his death. Although he was politically conservative, he carried out numerous administrative reforms until declaring war on revolutionary France in 1792. He was the father of the last three mainline Kings of Sardinia.