Silver 1 As Necklaced male head series

Populonia was the only Etruscan city to strike its own coinage directly from locally controlled iron-rich resources along the Tyrrhenian coast, and its silver fractional series — of which this as belongs — reflects a mint operating largely independent of Roman monetary influence well into the third century BC. By the time Rome absorbed the region, much of Populonia's coinage had already dropped out of circulation, which is precisely why surviving examples often retain surprising surface detail despite their age.