Corum Italy Coin Watch "40 Lire"

There’s a certain audacity required to take a piece of circulating currency and decide it deserves a second life on the wrist. Corum has been doing exactly that for decades, and in the process, they became the name people think of when the words “coin watch” come up. Not as a novelty, but as a discipline. This is their language.

What you’re looking at here began life long before anyone was arguing about case sizes or lug widths. This is an Italian 40 Lire gold coin dating back to the early 19th century, a time when money carried portraits, politics, and power in equal measure. Corum didn’t recreate it. They didn’t reference it. They used the real thing. The coin was once legal tender, passed hand to hand, meant to represent authority, stability, and value. Then, much later, it was entrusted to Swiss watchmakers confident enough to hollow it with surgical restraint and slip a mechanical movement inside without disturbing its soul.

The dial side displays the Italian coat of arms in all its unapologetic complexity. A crowned shield sits at the center, divided into heraldic sections that speak to regions, rule, and lineage. You’ll find scepters, symbols of sovereignty, layered textures, and finely preserved grain that only centuries of survival can produce. The surface isn’t flat or polite. It’s alive with depth. Corum’s discreet signature sits quietly, knowing better than to compete with history.

Around the perimeter, the coin’s original edge detailing remains intact. Those dotted, beveled ridges aren’t decorative afterthoughts. They once served as anti-counterfeiting measures, and here they pull double duty as hour markers. It’s one of those details that makes you pause, then smile. Nothing added. Nothing wasted.

Flip the watch over and Napoleon Bonaparte appears in profile, dated 1812. His presence on an Italian coin isn’t accidental. During this period, much of Italy fell under French influence, with Napoleon styling himself King of Italy. Coins bearing his likeness were struck to reinforce authority across occupied regions. This watch preserves that chapter intact. Two faces of power, two sides of the same object, now brought together as a wearable artifact.

Most coin watches of this size lean on quartz for convenience. This one doesn’t. Inside is a manual-wound Swiss movement, thin enough to respect the coin’s proportions and rare enough to matter. Winding it feels appropriate, almost ceremonial, like acknowledging the object for what it is rather than what it pretends to be.

The 18k yellow gold case frames the coin with restraint, letting the original edges do the talking. A diamond-set crown adds a small flash of irreverence, the kind of detail you notice only when the light hits just right. The watch comes fitted to a brand new black alligator strap, finished with a gold-plated Corum key buckle, grounding the entire piece in something unmistakably deliberate.

This isn’t just for someone who collects watches. It’s for someone who understands objects. Someone who likes the idea that gold once used to buy bread, fund empires, and signal power can now mark the hours of an ordinary Tuesday. It’s history, value, and craftsmanship pressed into a single circle, still doing what it has always done: matter.