10 Lire - Victor Emmanuel III

Italy's 10 Lire of this period was minted under the economic pressures of Mussolini's "Battle for the Lira," a deflationary campaign launched in 1926 that artificially revalued the lira to 90 per British pound — a rate so punishing to Italian exports that industrial unemployment spiked sharply. The revaluation was politically theatrical, pegged to a speech Mussolini gave in Pesaro, and the silver coinage issued alongside it functioned partly as propaganda of fiscal seriousness.

Production dropped considerably after 1930 as the Depression contracted silver coin demand across Europe. The 1934 issues are notably scarcer by mintage.