I'm sure many of you know this type of envelope. It arrived last Friday after being 85 days in the post between Albany, NY and Europe. It contained almost a dozen mainly Roman coins from the April 8, Bargain Sale of Frank Robinson. I was despairing for a long time that it would come - but finally it did. And on the same day an American customer emailed that our parcel to him (containing a famous old actor's self portrait) had arrived at his place after 81 days in the post from Europe to a small town in Ohio. So there is hope after all. In the parcel was this mediocre condition Julia Domna sestertius: Julia Domna 193-217, sestertius. Obv. Bust to the right, hair with large bun. IVLIADO. Rev. Securitas standing l. with spear and shield. SECVR/SC. 29.5 mm, 17.39 gr. According to a former owner (nice to leave these old descriptions with the coins, FSR!), it might be barbarous - but why would a sestertius of Domna be imitated? There were two nicer Alexandria tetradrachms, one of Salonina and one of Aurelian / Vabalathus, and one of Commodus. One coin of Caracalla and Plautilla (Gabala), and one of Crispina. But also a nice Parthian chalkous of Arsakes XVI also known as Unknown King (II), 90-80 BC, an interesting Tarsus provincial, and a nice barbarous imitation of a Tetricus I antoninianus with an unusual reverse (a jug). All of these filled holes. Some pictures: AE tetradrachm Salonina. Alexandria year 14 = 266/267. Obv. Bust r. Rev. Elpis t.l. holding flower. Elpis, that's the Roman personification of Hope. Well: I have Hope.
Nice looking coins! Over 80 days though! I’m starting to not fee so bad about the coins I have been waiting 30 days for...
That is a long wait. A couple of months ago I had a coin from the US take 42 days to get to the UK. It was marked 'dispatched to the UK' fairly quickly, but it was another 30 days before it 'arrived in the UK'. In the same time I received 3 separate coin orders from Canada, each ordered after the previous one arrived. The quickest took just 3 days.
This one couldn't be mailed for about a month after the auction closed in Spain because the post office was shut down for COVID-19. Then it took another six weeks or so to get here to the US.
While the eye on the portrait is a bit odd, the big reason to suspect unofficial is that the reverse is normal for Caracalla but not Domna. I would have bid on the coin as a single if Frank had listed it. You make unofficial AE when you are in an area short on change and you need it. This is closer to normal style than many. See my Faustina II sestertius:
I have finally received almost all of the 10 coins, mostly from separate dealers, since the Covid19 age began. I live in the US, in Colorado, and most of my purchases were from European or British auctions. I always track and sign up for alert messages. One of the phenomena I'm seeing is that a registered package may stop in any single place, either in the origin country or here in the US for up to 3-4 weeks before being sent to the next distribution point. This said, I had one lot delivered in four days from Germany using DHL (I love DHL. Costs a little more than mail but worth it. Especially for higher priced lots.)
The package I had been waiting on supposedly went out for delivery to my home address a couple days ago. I have actually been out of town, but will be back home tomorrow. Fingers crossed it made it!
Pellinor's Domna sestertius with Caracalla rev. is interesting, but probably unofficial, because the style is a little crude as dougsmit said, and because on my chronology Julia's DOMNA legend ended in mid-194, about when Septimius became IMP IIII for his final defeat of Niger, whereas Caracalla Caesar's Minerva standing type was not introduced until towards the end of 196, more than two years later. Official mules, as one would expect, were almost always struck from two dies that the mint was using at one and the same time. By late 196, it was highly unlikely that any of Julia's DOMNA obv. dies from mid-194 and earlier would still have been available at the mint.
Thank you, Doug and Curtis Clay, for shining the light of your knowledge on my puzzling Domna. So it is not an 'official mule', but is there a place where a coin like this may have been minted? Not in Rome, I think, but in some shady outskirts of the Roman Empire?
