Trachy - John III Doukas-Vatatzes

John III ruled the Empire of Nicaea from 1221 to 1254, presiding over its most expansive period — recapturing Thessalonika from Latin control in 1246 and reducing the Latin Empire of Constantinople to little more than the city itself. His copper trachea were the workhorse coinage of a state that styled itself the legitimate continuation of Byzantium while operating from Anatolia, and they circulated across a frontier economy constantly shifting under pressure from Nicaean expansion and Seljuk encroachment to the east.

BCV 2110 is among the more frequently encountered Nicaean copper types, which tells its own story about the administrative reach John had built by his later reign.