Follis or imitation?

[Skolot]

Hello! Please help me to identify this coin.

[Byzantofil]

Interesting Arab-Byzantine imitation.  It is especially interesting because on the reverse, as it seems to me, someone tried to depict a typical Byzantine monogram, most likely meaningless.

[Skolot]

Thanks!

[Simon]

It reminds me of the bottom coin, it was sold as an imitation of the upper coin a monogram tetarteron. I was never certain but that would date it to the rule of Manuel in the middle of the 12th century.

[Byzantofil]

Interestingly, these two monogrammed coins were minted from the same pair of dies.  Very interesting.  And I must say that in style the portrait of the emperor is much closer to the Arab-Byzantine imitations from VII c. than to the imitations of the late copper tetarterons.

[Simon]

I agree , i bought that coin from a German auction house. The coin is extremly crude for it to be a 12th century imitation but the monogram is very similar to the original.

Most imitations are light weight and created in the 13th century. In this case it is heavier, 2.6 gm and larger 24mm.

Maybe the similarities are simply a coincidence, after all the coin did not commonly circulate in Asia Minor.

[Vladislav D]

A "similar "coin (not mine) was sold 5-6 years ago by a seller from Cyprus, whose coins were mostly found in Lebanon-Syria-Turkey.
The second coin is mine, from the same seller who claimed to have found it with the first coin.
Looks like an imitation of Roger II, Count of Calabria and Sicily 1105-1154. Follaro , Spahr 54 ; MEC 14, 165 .
Regards,
Vlad .

[Byzantofil]

The first of the shown coins is surprisingly similar in obverse to the upper two.
The obverse is not the same, but is very similar in style. The situation is changing in an interesting way