Given earlier Journal entries it will be no surprise that I, not only, have an interest in die varieties but have also been looking at the Napoleonic coinage of Italy which is complex to say the least!

It looks like I was not the only one attempting to resolve this dilemma as another collector has also been working on the gold 20 Lire issues and their collection came up for sale at the recent Gaduory auction in Monaco which took place on 22/23 October (see catalogue pages below and next post). It includes the variations in the number of stars, the points on the stars, the overdates and the relative positions and styles of the M mintmark for Milan.

I think this should now be the reference work for these coins - just the small matter of all the other denominations to sort out now which are even more diverse than 20 Lire with the Venice and Bologna mints also issuing coins and often reusing the dies from Milan!