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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Curtis, post: 24634674, member: 26430&quot;]This is a great topic and a great post! Late Byzantine is far from being my main focus, but the history of numismatic knowledge is my favorite collecting focus (both for coins and coin books), and I actually have a coin directly relevant to this topic. </p><p><br /></p><p>Your info about developments the 1960s and all the various different but similar types is very helpful.</p><p><br /></p><p>One of my favorite coins (reasons given below) in my entire collection is a seemingly very humble 13th century AE Tetarteron of John Ducas Vatazes, Emperor of Nicaea:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1567131[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>The reason it&#039;s one of my favorite coins is that it was probably the first of its type ever published in a <i>Revue Numismatique</i> article by de Saulcy in 1842:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1567136[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>In the 19th century, AE Trachea were sometimes called <i>cuivres concaves </i>(&quot;concave coppers&quot;), but de Saulcy gave no terminology or even description for this coin type in 1842, besides to call it an &quot;interessante monnaie&quot; (<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x030351307&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=412&amp;skin=2021&amp;q1=vatatzes" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x030351307&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=412&amp;skin=2021&amp;q1=vatatzes" rel="nofollow">page 416,</a> the top coin described; <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x030351307&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=517&amp;skin=2021&amp;q1=vatatzes" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x030351307&amp;view=1up&amp;seq=517&amp;skin=2021&amp;q1=vatatzes" rel="nofollow">Pl. XIX, 7</a> -- he guessed about the missing legends &amp; got it wrong!).</p><p><br /></p><p>Twenty years later, Sabatier was using the phrase &quot;Monnaie plane&quot; or &quot;flat coin(age).&quot; (Inexplicably, though, he thought there were two different reverse varieties, based on the two known specimens by then, an error which persisted well into the 20th century.) </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1567141[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Leopn Dardel&#039;s illustration preserves the reverse image from 1942, but adds a second reverse and combines the obverse with another -- which de Saulcy acquired after 1842 and was eventually sold with the Karl Egon II coins &amp; now resides at Dumbarton Oaks.</p><p><br /></p><p>Interestingly, that second-known piece (along with the Ratto Collection specimen which emerged later and joined Dumbarton Oaks) sounds like it was among the first to be labeled Tetarteron in Hendy&#039;s catalogs!</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1911, Wroth&#039;s <i>BMC Vandals</i> (p. 219, see note 1) doesn&#039;t seem to suggest any module or type or denomination at all, besides copper coins of Type 1, Type 2...</p><p><br /></p><p>Finally, in the 1930&#039;s, Goodacre begins publishing this coin (at least 3 different times -- using three different plaster or sulfur casts of it!), and describing it with the highly technical term, &quot;Flat Coinage&quot;!</p><p><br /></p><p>See his 1938 article, “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42664191" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/42664191" rel="nofollow">The Flat Bronze Coinage of Nicaea</a>.” <i>Numismatic Chronicle</i> Vol 18: 159-164. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1567142[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>He used a somewhat better image in his popular <i>Handbook of the Coinage of the Byzantine Empire. </i>Still no better terminology than &quot;copper&quot; and &quot;flat&quot;:</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1567143[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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