Catalog
71/2 luigini - Giorgio I
| Issuer | Principality of Seborga |
|---|---|
| Year | 1995 |
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| Technique | Milled |
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| Obverse description | Draped bust of Giorgio I, Prince of Seborga, facing right, depicted with short hair and a beard, wearing a ceremonial garment adorned with a beaded necklace. The mint mark '1666 MINT-SB' appears incuse on the truncation. The surrounding legend reads 'GIORGIO I• PRINCIPE DI SEBORGA' along the upper periphery, with the date '1995' at the base, flanked by two floral ornaments. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Central design featuring three heraldic shields arranged in a triangular composition: the left shield bears a cross with decorative terminals, the central shield displays the crowned cross of Seborga surmounted by a princely crown, and the right shield bears a plain cross on a lined field. Below the shields, a sword and a sprig of vegetation are depicted in saltire. The denomination '7½ L' appears to the lower left of the central device. The surrounding legend reads 'PRINCIPATO DI SEBORGA' along the upper periphery and 'SUB UMBRA SEDI' along the lower periphery, each flanked by floral ornaments. |
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| Additional information |
Seborga is a small hilltop village in Liguria whose claim to independence rests on a 1079 Sardinian deed and a 1729 sale-that-never-was — the principality argues it was never legally incorporated into the Kingdom of Sardinia and therefore never became part of unified Italy. Giorgio Carbone, a flower grower elected "prince" by the villagers in 1963, pursued this claim with enough persistence that Seborga issued its own currency, the luigino, named after the 17th-century coin minted there when the village was briefly a genuine fiefdom of the Cistercian monks.
The original luigini were struck in quantity by several Italian principalities in the 1660s specifically for export to the Levant trade, where they circulated as low-value silver currency among Ottoman merchants.