I have the denarius below of Severus Alexander. I bought the coin as an official mint product, but I wonder if it isn't an imitation? Obv.:IMP C M AVR SEV ALEXAND AVG Rev.: SAVS PVBLICA (note the missing L in SALVS) The somewhat strange style and the wrong spelling of the reverse legends make me wonder if this coin is perhaps unofficial or from a poorly controlled eastern mint (Antioch?). I don't think the coin is a contemporary forgery. It appears to be of good silver and at 3.7 g. it is heavier than most coins of this type. RIC 178 (var.)
Style strikes me as believable for the Eastern mint (Antioch?). Latin was not the primary language of the staff. Official? Mine has the L.
Thanks a lot. Yes, I can see stylistic similarities between the busts. Also, I found the coin below on Wildwinds. It has the legend: SALVS PSVLAS https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/severus_alexander/RIC_0298var.jpg RIC 298var It never really occurred to me that the staff at mints like Antioch primarily spoke and wrote Greek not Latin. Another misspelled example from Antioch: PROVID DEROVM https://www.wildwinds.com/coins/ric/severus_alexander/RIC_0294var.jpg
I agree, definitely Eastern. I have a similar denarius with a different letter omitted: on rev. PBLICA instead of PVBLICA, V omitted.
Interesting coin and almost undoubtedly an eastern example because of the style, blundered legend as well.
I'll add to the growing consensus that it's an official eastern ("Antioch") mint product. The obverse is too good for it to be otherwise IMO. This one from about the same time is perhaps a bit more borderline: There's quite a bit of surface copper, although that's not unheard of on official issues (sometimes the strike didn't enrich the surface with enough silver). The obverse legend is quite severely blundered at the end (tiny D and A, missing VG), and there's a P missing from the end of the reverse legend. (The dating also doesn't make sense – SA was never TR P II and COS II simultaneously – but that's normal for the issue.) A couple of other examples on acsearch (out of 15 or so) seem to have poor metal, and another two have crowded legends, so I lean towards official. (Would welcome your opinion, @curtislclay!)
As I wrote earlier, it never really occurred to me that most people in the eastern half of the Roman Empire spoke Greek instead of Latin, i.e. knew Latin at best only as a foreign language. I think this probably explains a lot of late Roman coins with spelling mistakes. For example, there are many coins of Emperor Leo I with blundered legends. Almost by default, these coins are usually attributed to some (Germanic) barbarians, even if no such group can plausibly be identified. I suppose that it is more likely that these coins were produced by greek mint workers at official mints.
Spelling errors are quite prolific in Antioch. The favourite of these in my collection:- VIRVS AVG for VIRTVS AVG
