Inspired by GDJMSP’s lucky angel post

[Wihlborg]

I decided to post a photo of one of my coins and to give a little history about it. The coin is a gold 20 Dinara from the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes It had a mintage of only 1,000 and was the first and only gold coin issued by the kingdom.

 

The kingdom was formed in 1918 and was made up of what were the kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro, as well as a large amount of land that until that time was part of Austria-Hungary, such as Croatia, Slavonia, Vojvodina, Carniola, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

 

The former king of Serbia, King Petar became the monarch of the newly formed kingdom, but Prince Aleksandar ruled the new kingdom in the name of his father until the death of King Petar in 1921, at which time Aleksandar became king. The name of the kingdom was changed on Oct. 3, 1929 to The Kingdom of Yugoslavia. King Aleksandar continued his rule of the kingdom until Oct. 9, 1934. On that day he had arrived in Marseilles, France for a state visit. While riding through the streets in a car with the French Foreign Minister, an assassin, hidden in the crowds that lined the street fired. King Aleksandar, the French Foreign Minister, and their chauffeur were all killed. And what became of the assassin you may ask. Well, a mounted French policeman used his sword to cut him down, at which point the crowd began beating him. By the time order was restored, the assassin himself was dead.

 

Well, here’s the coin.

 

John

[GDJMSP]

Quite a story - quite a coin too

 

I have to wonder though - who was the target or did they ever find out ?

[Wihlborg]

GDJMSP,

 

King Aleksandar was the assassins intended target. The assassins name was Vlada Gheorghieff. Some accounts say that Gheorghieff, who was a Macedonian, was ‘loaned’ as an assassin to act for Croatian separatists. There is a large amount of evidence however that Gheorghieff was a member of a Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and acted on their behalf. One thing was certain, by the time of the assassination, King Aleksandar was widely hated due to his iron fisted rule over Yugoslavia.

 

An interesting side note is that this was the first assassination to be captured on motion picture film, as there just so happened to be a photographer standing only a few feet away recording the king going by when Gheorghieff began firing.

 

Here is a link to the actual 1934 film showing the assassination.

King Aleksandar's assassination

 

John