Been awhile since I added a new Byzantine coin. Saw this one listed from one of my favorite dealers & grabbed it. John I Tzimiskes (969 - 976 A.D.) Æ “Anonymous” Follis Class A1 O: Nimbate bust of Christ facing, wearing pallium and colobium and holding book of Gospels; IC XC in fields to left and right. R: + IhSЧS / XRISTЧS / bASILЄЧ / bASILЄ / ·, legend in four lines. 8.68g 26mm SBCV 1793 John I Tzimisces was the lover of Empress Theophano, which led to the murder of Emperor Nicephorus II and John's elevation to the throne. John introduced a follis that depicted a bust of Christ on the obverse and a religious inscription on the reverse. These types, referred to as anonymous folles because they do not identify the issuing emperor, would become the norm for bronze coinage during the following century.
I believe your follis is one of his successors Basil II and Constantine VIII. John had no ornaments after the phrase. Yours does, and thus falls into the large majority of anonymous folles. @Valentinian made a good article on them recently. Here is my follis, which was also my first Byzantine coin.
That's a very attractive coin @Mat ! I have ugly anonymous folles and uglier ones. I kind of gave up on keeping the classes strait. So this is a class E it looks like?
Beautiful coin but it is an A2, The A1's had no ornamentation on the reverse above and bellow, yours does. The denomination from A2 starts heavy and by the end it is half of the original issue weight.
@Mat , the obverse of the OP coin seems to be type 41 or 42 in this table: http://augustuscoins.com/ed/ByzAnon/ClassA.html#table and the reverse not paired with it there. There are varieties that have been discovered since that table was published in 1973. See here: http://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/view.asp?key=Anonymous Byzantine Class A Folles and yours looks like the reverse they pair with 39 through 40b. It might be a new pairing. In any case, it is a very nice coin.
