Picture 1: 1934 - 1945
Picture 2: 1945 - 1948
CONI:
In 1934 front plates, previously arranged by the owner of the vehicle, started being manufactured by the "CONI" (Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano... it means Italian National Olympic Committee) that kept the income of their sale: for this reason they had a small symbol with the print CONI inside. At the beginning it was rhomboid and was attached to the plate with a hole (picture 1), then later, from 1945 up to 1948, it became oval-shaped and was printed directly on the plate (picture 2).
|
Picture 1: 1934 - 1945 |
Picture 2: 1945 - 1948 |
ASSOCIATION OF DISABLED MEN OF THE WAR:
From 1944, when fascism ended and the fascio was removed from the Italian plates, until 1948 the symbol of the "Associazione Mutilati e Invalidi di Guerra" (Association of disabled men of the war) was printed on the rear plates, though this association had been making plates since 1927. As you can see (pictures 3 and 4) it was a thorn crown with three bayonets and the funds raised with these plates were given to the association. A collector told me that actually this symbol was introduced a bit earlier, around 1941 because he has got a picture of the plate "Roma 77344" that was issued on February 1941 and it has got the symbol of the association.
 Picture 3 |
 Picture 4 |
Notice that the second a the third pictures are a couple (front and back) of the same car. The fourth picture is a back plate with the disabled men symbol, but that was used on trailers (rimorchio) and the first picture is a temporary front plate with the CONI symbol: this shows that these symbols were used on all Italian plates of all kinds and not only on plates for civil cars.
Many thanks to Alessandro Libanore for all these very good pictures!
