913-959 AD. Obv: +IhS XPS REX REGNANTIUM*, Christ Pantocrator nimbate, seated facing, raising right hand in benediction and holding book of gospels. Rev: ROMAn ET XPISTOFO' AUGG b', facing busts of Romanus I with short beard and loros, on left, and son, beardless, with chlamys, on right, both crowned and holding long patriarchal cross between them. DO 7; Sear 1745. 4.37 grams, 21 mm. .

Ex Richard Falkiner, 2000s.

Romanos Lekapenos was a usurper. Of peasant origins he rose through the ranks of the military into the imperial court eventually ousting the regency government of Zoe Karvounopsina and Leo Phokas that had been ruling in the name of the underage heir to the Macedonian dynasty, Constantine VII. After marrying the young Constantine porphyrogennitos to his daughter Helena in 919, Romanos named himself basileopater, (‘Father of the Emperor’), was raised to the rank of Caesar in 920, and crowned emperor later the same year. He associated three of his sons (Christopher, Stephen, and Constantine) with himself, while the fourth, Theophylakt, was later named patriarch.