Antoninianus - Tetricus II PAX AVG; Barbarous imitation

Tetricus II was elevated to Caesar by his father Tetricus I around 270 AD, and the pair ruled the Gallic Empire until their defeat by Aurelian at the Battle of Châlons in 274. The volume of barbarous imitations produced of their coinage is extraordinary — so many circulated across Gaul and Britain that distinguishing official from unofficial strikes becomes genuinely difficult at low weights like this one. At 1.15g, this piece sits well below even the degraded official standard, suggesting it was struck locally, probably in a small unofficial workshop copying whatever coins happened to be at hand.