Featured The empire strikes back: Nicaea Hyperpyron

I was forced to abstain form Coin-Talk for the past 4 days. The first 3 were courtesy of my internet provider who decided to do network maintenance work in my area. As if that wasn't enough, when I finally got my net access back yesterday morning, I discovered to my horror that Coin-Talk was down. It took less than a week of abstinence to remind me that I am addicted to this hobby. Luckily, the postman made sure that I was right back on track by delivering something nice this morning. It is the latest addition to my collection, a gold hyperpyron of the runaway Byzantine empire of Nicaea. One of my collecting goals is to get all Byzantine gold types, so I am nearly there as I have solidi, histamena and now a hyperpyron. A tetarteron is next, however that is going to be a bit trickier both availability and budget wise.



Collectors familiar with these coins will instantly notice that this specimen is far from being a prime example of the type. The main problem is that it has been clipped to death. Almost a gram and a half of gold has been taken away by some greedy scoundrel who took advantage of the 'die to flan' ratio of those cup-shaped coins. I bet that some unfortunate merchant unfamiliar with this issue got fleeced back in the day. Yes, it adds an interesting historical aspect to the coin, but I would have preferred it intact. Its current size is now almost identical to the older solidi, which perhaps was the intention of the tightwad miser that butchered my coin. The other issue is that the strike is somewhat weak on the obverse, but I guess it could be worse. The gold content should be around 18 carats according to my research. Nothing like the pureness of the solidi of the good old times, but a vast improvement to the heavily debased 'gold' histamena of the 11th century. After all, that is why it was called a 'Hyperpyron' (super-refined) which was a marketing attempt to reinstate some confidence in Byzantine gold coinage.

As far as this one is concerned, we should be happy that it has so much gold considering that for a Byzantine gold coin, it well... isn't really Byzantine as the empire technically didn't exist at that point thanks to the sacking of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204. I am not going to add much detail regarding the hows and whys Constantinople was sacked (it has been done in other threads), I will just say that it was a rather impolite act. Luckily for the glorious Byzantines it wasn't a total disaster as a good number of high-ranking royals, clergy and other VIPs manage to flea in time and settled just a couple of hundred kilometres south of Constantinople in the region of Nicaea. This was conveniently called the 'Empire of Nicaea' which was in effect a rump state leading the struggle for Byzantine liberation from the Latin oppressors. There were more such states, the empire of Thessalonica, the empire of Trebizond and the despotate of Epirus.

It was founded by Theodore I Laskaris, the son in law of Alexios III Angelos. Its close proximity to the Latin territory is due to the fact that the Latins did not have the necessary cohesion and manpower to properly control and police their newly acquired Kingdom. As one would have expected, skirmishes were plentiful, and initially not that successful for Theodore. It was soon apparent that the liberation of Constantinople would not be easy or quick. There was even conflict with Trebizond as power was the main motivation for re-taking Constantinople rather than simple liberation.


John III, from History of John Zonaras - Wikimedia Commons

My coin was minted during the times of John III Ducas-Vatatzes, who came from a military family. He was of no royal blood, but was selected by Theodore as the second husband for his daughter Irene Laskarina. He became heir to the throne because of the death of Adronikos Palaiologos, Irene's first husband. Such a weak lineage caused internal conflict and John had no choice but to violently suppress the opposition that was funded and supported by the Latins. After a shaky start,he managed to hold the reigns of the empire for the next 30 years. It was far from a peaceful reign as he was often in conflict not just with the Latins but also occasionally with the other successor states. He died in Nympaion in 1254 after doing all the groundwork for the imminent re-conquest of Constantinople by Nicaea. On top of his successful military and diplomatic strategies, John was a capable leader that re-established internal order and organisation and was also responsible for economic prosperity as my coin indicates. John was canonized as a saint by the Orthodox church 50 years after his death. His feast day is November the 4th and is a popular Greek saint even to this day.

Show me your Byzantine rump states coins, or any other coins that had precious metal removed from them.

 

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@Only a Poor Old Man, coming from a trachy kind of place, the obverse strike on your hyperpyron doesn't look half bad! Good luck with the tetarteron --right, the minor fractions are sort of the mirror image of the gold, for coolness. (Wish I had some pics of my earlier ones.) Here's my one and only John trachy. SB 2104, with St. Theodore (a conspicuously martial saint) on the obverse.

 

It’s always a treat when @Only a Poor Old Man gives in to his addiction and later comes to coin talk to confess. Great write up as always.

I try to avoid clipped coins, but it’s hard to get a late Roman siliqua with an unclipped rim. Both my Honorius and Theodosius I siliquas have been subject to «tightwad misers»:




The gold bug and youtuber Mike Maloney made a series of videos about coins and currency debasement a few years ago. In one of those, he claims that coin clipping was a form of hidden inflation in the late Roman empire; that Roman officials would clip their coins every time they entered an official building, and that the small clippings became new coins for the empire. As I’ve never heard this anywhere else, and as I question a few of the other «facts» in these videos, I’m not sure this is correct. In any event, it’s an interesting alternative to the usual assumption; that it was the ordinary people that clipped the coins:

 

Who was it here --one of the sceatta experts, I think-- who noted (maybe citing an article online) that in the west of the Roman Empire, but mainly after the fall, siliquae were clipped in an almost 'semi-official' capacity, to bring them down to the same weight and module as sceattas?

 

This purchase was actually the result of my frustration, when I realised that I am unlikely to be able to place a competitive bid for a solidus in the upcoming Roma auction. I will still give it a go, but I would be very surprised if I win.

A gold tetarteron would be a great addition to my collection as they were beautiful coins. I would have to stop buying coins for a bit though to be able to amass the necessary funds, which is currently unlikely as I keep buying coins to kill my lockdown boredom.

Perhaps this post is a good opportunity for me to share a nice aspron trachy from John's father in law. After all I wrote about him in this write-up and it was my first Empire of Nicaea coin. St Theodore and his mighty sword is on the reverse in this example.

 

Oh No, @Only a Poor Old Man, I did the same thing again, and blithely assumed that all tetarterons are AE! Sorry....

 

Here is my coolest coin of John III (well, I assume of John):

Unpublished John III AR Trachy - Obverse: Virgin Mary with infant Christ at breast, seated upon a backed throne / MP OV
Reverse: John III holding anexikakia being crowned by Christ, holding the book of Gospels. IC XC (of what remains legible)

No matches in DOC, LBC, or online from what I can find

 

@The Trachy Enjoyer, seeing a trachy of John that's this evidently AR made me sit up in my chair! Evocative of what @Only a Poor Old Man had to say about his reform of the gold.

 

Thanks! I spotted this in a group lot of all places...probably my best find ever!!!

 

Serious Congrats! I'd never seen one. How scarce are they? False modesty will get you nowhere....

 

Not sure but they are certainly hard to come by. AR coins from 1204-1282 tend to be very rare. The only other AR Trachy of John III I can recall being sold recently was with Nomos. I was in the hunt for a while but it ended up hammering well beyond what I could spend. I got really lucky with this lot

 

Its also pretty light weight at 0.79 grams. The AR trachys of John seem to average around 1 gram from what I have seen online

 

...Thanks for the background! The story gets better as it goes along.
It's also cool, wryly so or not, that the weight (and appearance) of your example suggests the kind of clipping that @Only a Poor Old Man was noting with the gold.

 

Clipping certainly seems common in this era..AV, AR, AE...nothing is safe haha

 

Yike! So those 'reduced' Latin trachys are clipped! ...Is there any indication whether, as such, this was official? Baldwin II was notoriously, chronically broke....

 

Im not sure. We know the Latins officially issued John III hyperpyron imitations lol. The Venetians left behind writing on how to spot these (good) fakes. They look identical to the official issues minus a 3 dot control mark and reddish hues

Baldwin II would take in 18 carat hyperpyrons and give 16 carat ones back

As for trachys, I haven’t read about whether the clippings were official. The Latins and Bulgars certainly did it though (People in Byzantine lands as well), and this forced the Byzantines to issue smaller trachys as a result. This is a theory behind why the module III (small) trachys of John exist which so stand out amongst contemporary Byzantine series

 

Mine are on average 2 grams each due to extreme clipping. I’m not sure what Byzantine era and what mint.

 

Somebody's gonna have fun with those....