Antoninianus - Diocletianus VICTORIA AVG, Victory

Diocletian's early coinage is inseparable from the monetary chaos he inherited — by 285 AD the antoninianus had been so debased over decades that "silver" coins were effectively bronze with a surface wash. This piece dates to before his 294 reforms, when he abandoned the antoninianus entirely in favor of the argenteus and the new nummus, making survivors from this transitional window an inadvertent record of the most degraded phase of Roman silver coinage.

RIC V.2 183C places this in the Lugdunum or eastern mint groups; OCRE's attribution narrows the field but mint assignment for Diocletianic antoninianii remains contested among specialists.