TYPE Byzantine Empire, Empire of Trebizond, Manuel I Komnenos (1238-1263 AD), silver asper DESCRIPTION . Obv: St. Eugenius holding long cross, Greek legend O AG [...] - EVGENIO Rev: Manuel in loros, holding labarum and akakia, Manus Dei in upper right, Greek legend MNL - O KOMNO REFERENCE: SB 2601 GRADING: VF, some central weakness, gray toning ORDER INFO: B2548, $65 The Empire of Trebizond splintered off from the main Byzantine state in the wake of Latin occupation of Constantinople. Given its territorial discontinuity with the shrinking Byzantine mainstream - located on the southeastern shores of the Black Sea - it led a precarious though illustrious existence for the next two and a half centuries, finally to be incorporated into the Ottoman Empire by Mehemmed the Conqueror, eight years after the fall of the Byzantine capital.