Appears to be
Antioch. Whether official or a
contemporary imitation is unclear. The
bust style looks quite
good. But hard to tell with the
reverse.
The "hook" on the outer edge of the coin is interesting. It became quite common on AE3s struck under the Valentinian 364-378 but can sometimes be found before and after that.
Someone, I think
Callu but am working from memory here, believed that these were caused by a flaw during the formation of the
flan.
His theory is that some flans at this period were made by dropping appropriate
weight molten blobs of metal onto a flat
stone which then
had another flat
stone placed on top of it. This would
flatten these blobs like pressing down on spherical balls of cookie dough to make flat round cookies.
These "hooks" were caused by differential cooling. If the blob cooled evenly it would press flat evenly and create a round
flan. But if
part of the blob started to solidify quicker than other parts then that
part would resist the downward and outward pressure. The molten metal would then flow around this obstruction - the cooler less ductile
bit of metal - creating these "hooks".
SC
