Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 1388. Estimate $1000.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $775. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CONSTANTINE IV, Pogonatus, with Heraclius and Tiberius. 668-685 AD. Æ Follis (19.56 gm, 6h). Constantinople mint. Struck 668-673 AD. DN CONSTAN TINUS PP AU, helmeted and cuirassed facing bust of Constantine, beardless, wearing helmet and cuirass, holding globus cruciger / Large M flanked by Heraclius and Tiberius, both wearing crown and chlamys, holding globus cruciger; A/CON. DOC II 28a; MIB III 77; SB 1173. Good VF, brown patina, area of flat strike on reverse, small flan crack. ($1000)

From the Malcolm W. Heckman Collection. Ex William Herbert Hunt Collection (Sotheby's 5-6 December 1990), lot 420.

The dawn of the reign of Constantine IV saw the beginning of a brave attempt at coinage reform. Under the reign of his father, Constans II, the ubiquitous bronze follis had decayed into one of the most wretched coinages ever inflicted on a people. Constantine revalued the follis, making it fully equivalent to its ancestor—the first large bronze coin issued under Anastasius I almost two hundred years earlier. Constantine was able to maintain this heavy standard throughout his seventeen year reign, but the succession of Justinian II in 685 saw the immediate revocation of this reform, and the return of the shrunken, cut-down follis of yesteryear.