World War II Italy Top 5 Auctions – What Do You Call A Baby Tank?

June 20, 2012

Italian L3/33 (CV-33), Flamethrower variant at the Bovington Tank Museum

The PAI Polizia Africa items are reminders of the Italian colonial past in Africa.  The PAI was a formed in 1939 and stood for the Police of Italian Africa.  They were equipped with light weapons including armored cars and motorcycles.  They also employed some tankettes which were a unique but mostly unsuccessful weapon used during the war.  These small tanks did not have a true tank gun but usually were equipped with a machine gun, grenade launcher or flame thrower.  They would be manned with one or sometimes two operators.  The concept failed because ultimately the weak armor was no match for more sophisticated weapons.  In the PAI the tankette of choice would have been the Itallian L3 (photo here from Wikipedia).

Checking in on some nice Italian items that sold recently on eBay its clear that there has been some spirited bidding lately.  Each of these top picks gathered more than a dozen bids on there way to making the list.

Click The Text Links To See What The Top Pieces Sold For

Bids	eBay Item Title - Link to Auction	Image Link
23	PAI POLIZIA AFRICA ITALIANA OFFICER PARADE BELT
20	PAI POLIZIA AFRICA ITALIANA OFFICER COLONIAL HELMET
14	COLONIAL PHARMACIST OFFICER COMPLET UNIFORM
14	Italian Srcm 35 "red devil" hand grenade factory cutaway sectioned inert replica
14	RSI REPUBBLICA SOCIALE ITALIANA AUTENTIC OFFICER UNIFORM