Order Of Malta

Thanks to Angielczyk, I have another "country" crossed off my OFEC list. Ever since I wrote my article on diplomatically-challenged coins, I've wanted one of these.

The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is the last remnant of the Crusaders; they're all that's left of the Knights Hospitaller. If it were more widely recognised diplomatically, it would be considered the smallest country in the world, even smaller than the Vatican City; their "territory" is a couple of buildings in Rome and a radio transmitter out in rural Italy.

Their territories used to be much larger; after fleeting the defeat of the crusader states in Palestine, the knights acquired Rhodes, just off the Turkish coast. When this island fell, they were granted Malta - hence the current short-form name of the modern Order. Napoleon evicted them while enroute to Egypt in 1798, and the remaining knights reformed themselves into a Catholic humanitarian organization; as such, the Order has attained Permanent Observer status at the United Nations. Their official English-language website is, apparently, www.smom.org.

The Krause catalogues have been ambiguous with regard to the status of these coins. My first Krause, the 1987 edition, didn't include them. My next one (1996) did, and this is where I first found out about the Order, and these coins. But my latest Krause (2005) doesn't list them anymore - they've been shuffled off to the "Unusual" book. Sure enough, this coin is catalogued on NumisMaster as KMX#26, with a note that it was formerly KM# M26.


The obverse shows a coat of arms comprised of the arms of the Order (plain white cross on red background) quartered with the personal coat of arms of the Grand Master of the Order at the time, Angelo de Mojana.

The reverse shows St John the Baptist, in his "prophet's garb", holding a banner, the Lamb of God at this feet. The mintmark, the initials SMOM around a cross, is at lower left. The verse of scripture (in Latin) is from Luke 3:11, the teaching of John about sharing food and possessions - a fitting enough theme for a Food and Agriculture Organization fundraiser coin. The date of issue is 1968. The denomination, "3 scudi", is derived from the monetary system on the island of Malta at the time the knights were evicted from there: 20 grani to the taro, 12 tari to the scudo.

I'm filing it under "Order of Malta" rather than "Malta, Order of", both to keep it separate and distinct from the coins of Malta proper and because I need more countries that start with the letter "O".