I picked this up in a lot of Nikopolis coins and thanks to @Jochen1's help I know this isn't one of them. It looked like Antoninus Pius to me but he said Marcus Aurelius or Commodus and I'm leaning towards the former. Any ideas on province or type would be much apprecaited!
That's a weird one. I'm totally out of my league where provincials are concerned, this period emphatically included. But in your example, there's this controlling contrast between the beard length (evoking Antoninus Pius, as per your initial guess), and the hair texture (no less emphatically evoking later Antonines --Marcus, Lucius Verus, or Commodus). ...Got to wonder whether the provincial mint was a factor here. As people here have talked about, far more eloquently than I ever could (memorably --just not enough so to cite it-- where issues of Vespasian, and later Flavians are concerned), there can be a time lag, while the provincial mints catch up with what the new emperor looked like. Except, in terms of the ostensible chronology (and on the basis of the above premise), your example seems to be going in the wrong direction! As in, how do you get a provincial issue, of this mileu, where the hair is later Antonine, and the beard --the easiest part of the obverse design to alter-- is short enough to evoke Antoninus Pius? ...Sorry; this was reducible to thinking in real time. As such, the best you're likely to get from here. Hoping someone who actually knows what they're talking about can weigh in on this.
It's not AP. I'm leaning towards Marcus Aurelius, but could be Commodus or even Varus. In the absence of a legible legend on the reverse, it's unlikely you'll be able to pin it down to a particular city.
