Triton XVIII, Lot: 1292. Estimate $300. Sold for $1000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Tiberius II Constantine. 578-582. Æ Follis (27mm, 9.92 g, 12h). Uncertain military mint, “4th officina”. Dated RY 5 (578/9). ∂ m TIЬ CONS–TANT P P AV, crowned bust facing, wearing consular robes, holding mappa in right hand, scepter topped by eagle in left / Large m; cross above, A/N/N/O Ч across field; CONΔ. DOC –; BMC 27 (Constantinople); MIBE 69; SB –. EF, olive green patina. Rare.

From the Collection of the MoneyMuseum, Zurich. Ex Lanz 149 (24 June 2010), lot 564.

A group of folles with the mint marks of Constantinople, Nicomedia, Cyzicus, and Theopoulis (Antioch), as well half folles with the Rome mint signature, form a stylistically homogenous group that must be the output of one operation, very likely a military mint. Hahn (MIBE p. 42) argues that this mint struck as a result of “...new military activities on the Persian frontier, in Thracia and in Italy from 579 onwards. It was possibly in this year that the emperor sent a small army unit to Italy as a nucleus for the formation of a Roman city militia.”