25 Centesimae Incuse series: dolphin

Populonia, the only Etruscan city known to have struck its own coinage directly from locally smelted ore, produced this bronze during the final decade of the Second Punic War — a period when Roman allied communities across the Italian peninsula were under acute pressure to fund military operations. The dolphin series bronzes are distinguished by their incuse reverse technique, a striking method more archaic than the city's own earlier silver issues and likely a deliberate local convention rather than a technical limitation.

Vecchi IV.31 is among the rarer dolphin-series denominations to survive with readable surfaces, partly because Populonian bronzes circulated hard in coastal trading contexts.