Please confirm if I am correct in saying this coin has not yet been published?? All of you Reference experts jump in on this item... Arcadius: Constantinople Mint 388-392 AD. Second Officina Size: 15mm, 1.23g Obverse: D N ARCADIVS P F AVG Bust of Arcadius, pearl-diademed, draped and cuirassed, right Reverse: SALVS REI-PVBLICAE Victory advancing left, carrying trophy over shoulder with right hand, and dragging captive; Christogram in left field; CONS(dot)(dot) in exergue References: RIC –(See 86c & 90b for type; different striking) Very Rare, Unpublished Exergue Type, "Two Dots Replace Alpha-numeric ???"
The line below the captive is not straight with the line below Victory which suggests that it could be a striking artefact from a poor strike, with the 2 ‘dots’ being the remains of the legs of the captive or the feet of the officina letter (A) rather than an unknown mintmark variety
Rule of thumb: New die types that could remotely possibly be explained as a striking artifact require confirmation with a second specimen before they can be accepted with any certainty. There can't be more that a few thousand dies of these. Finding a match might be a matter of luck but I hope you find one.
>Arcadius--RARE Unpublished Exergue Type ?? I liked your post just because you used the word "exergue"... I've been playing a lot of Scrabble during this quarantine ;-)
Arcadius. 14-13 mm. 1.46 grams. The mintmark seems to be CONΓ possibly followed by a dot, but the dot may be a foot of the captive. The type is, like the OP type, RIC Constantinople 86, from 388-392, issues shared with Valentinian II and Theodosius. If the OP coin has two dots, there would be something similar, a variant, for Valentinian II and for Theodosius. Not only must we heed @dougsmit 's "Rule of thumb," we should also find parallels for Valentinian II and Theodosius before we can assert the existence of a new mintmark configuration. That said, the OP coin is extremely nice for type and fun to contemplate.