arcadivs

Yes, I've had a look at some of those. As you say though, they don't really look too similar. There are some Armenian imitations as well, which are cruder although they have Armenian on the reverse (I'll link below), unlike mine which is in Greek! It's an odd coin - if only it came with some provenance I might be able to narrow it down but it came in a group lot from one of the budget auction houses https://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=armenian+follis+christ&category=1-2&lot=&date_from=&date_to=&thesaurus=1&images=1&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&currency=usd&order=1

Yes, the reverse is definitely in Greek so not much like yours, I'll turn my search away from Islamic imitations. I think the reverse is the correction orientation, just below the large flan I can make out +IhSUS (although the S and U are so poor they look more like I and a backwards r!). I'm starting to consider that it might be a crafty byzantine trying to stamp his own coins as even imitations seem to be more sophisticated than this example. That or as @Al Kowsky suggests, it is a more modern creation.

Thank you very much! Despite my namesake, I'm yet to own any coins of Arcadius (I have to admit that I've used it in lots of places just because I think it's a cool name 😁). That example is in lovely condition compared to many of the bronze pieces from his reign - the hand crowning an already diademed Arcadius has to be my favourite part of it! Coins with captives are always fun, I'll have to keep an eye for one so I can live up to the name

Thank you! Yes, I have wondered that myself although as you say, anonymous folles are plentiful I can't imagine anyone wanting to make a modern imitation. If they did, I wonder why they wouldn't just cast a nicer example, it seems to have been quite a bit of effort for a very poor result. I'm assuming the coin isn't a cast as it doesn't really have any signs of being so, although the poor condition of the coin could be concealing them.

Hello, this is my first post here. I recently got this VERY crude imitation of a type A anonymous follis. I've posted this elsewhere and some have suggested it may be an Islamic imitation (mainly due to the scripts in the right field of the obverse). The reverse appears to be similar in content to official coins - albeit far far cruder. I've been searching for a while and can't seem to find any matches to any Islamic or Armenian imitations and so was wondering if you fine folk have seen anything like this before? Any help to point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated 🙂 If not, enjoy this very dumbstruck-looking Christ!