Reproduction Medal - Aspron Trachy, Manuel Komnenos Doukas

Manuel Komnenos Doukas ruled the Despotate of Epirus in the 1230s, a fragmented successor state carved out of Byzantine territory following the Fourth Crusade's sack of Constantinople in 1204. The aspron trachy — a concave, billon scyphate coin — was the workhorse denomination of late Byzantine commerce, though by Manuel's reign the type had debased so far from its original silver content that "aspron" had become largely nominal. Monnaie de Paris issued this 1977 restrike in sterling as part of a broader medieval coinage reproduction series, rendering in fine silver a coin that its original holders would barely have recognized as containing any.