Theodore I Laskaris founded the Empire of Nicaea in exile after the Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople in 1204 handed the city to the Latin Empire. These trachea were struck not as a rump currency but as a deliberate assertion of Byzantine continuity — Nicaea positioned itself as the legitimate successor state, and its coinage followed that logic precisely. The billon trachy fabric, scyphate and debased, was inherited wholesale from late Komnenian practice.
BCV 2061 is frequently found with significant fabric cracks, a structural consequence of the cup-shaped flan under die pressure at this composition level.
Theodore I Laskaris founded the Empire of Nicaea in exile after the Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople in 1204 handed the city to the Latin Empire. These trachea were struck not as a rump currency but as a deliberate assertion of Byzantine continuity — Nicaea positioned itself as the legitimate successor state, and its coinage followed that logic precisely. The billon trachy fabric, scyphate and debased, was inherited wholesale from late Komnenian practice.
BCV 2061 is frequently found with significant fabric cracks, a structural consequence of the cup-shaped flan under die pressure at this composition level.