Basilikon - John VI Kantakouzenos

John VI Kantakouzenos struck this issue during one of the most fractured episodes in Byzantine monetary history — a civil war against John V Palaiologos that had already consumed the empire for nearly a decade before this coin was produced. His reign as sole emperor lasted barely a year before he abdicated in 1354, largely because an Ottoman force under Suleyman Pasha had just seized Gallipoli, permanently establishing a Turkish foothold in Europe. Kantakouzenos, who had invited the Ottomans as allies against his rivals, never recovered politically from that consequence.