Nummus with palm tree Carthage

The Vandal kingdom in North Africa produced these tiny bronze nummi in the decades following Gaiseric's sack of Carthage in 455 — a conquest that stripped Rome of its wealthiest provincial revenue base and left the Vandals administering one of the Mediterranean's most sophisticated monetary infrastructures almost by accident. They largely kept Roman coinage conventions intact, partly from pragmatism and partly because the existing Carthaginian mint infrastructure simply continued operating under new management.

At under half a gram, these pieces were the smallest denomination in daily use, exchanged for the most basic transactions in the market economy Gaiseric was careful not to destroy.