I now have a couple of different examples of this oddity. A Venus reverse type normally associated with Julia Domna produced for Septimius Severus. Septimius Severus denarius Obv:- IMP CAE L SEP SEV PERT AVG COS II, laureate head right Rev:- VEN-ER VICT, Venus standing left, holding apple in right hand; sceptre in left Emesa mint. Struck 194-195 AD. References:- RIC IV -; BMCRE -; RSC -. I might just have a go at cleaning this one as the suface adhesions detract from the coin a bit too much for my liking.
Yeah, I may actually give that a go with a bit of adhesion removal. At first I thought it wa a fouree.
I see nothing particularly odd about the coin. Emesa did not see anything wrong with using female types for male rulers and vice-versa. Mainstream scholars of the last century decreed that Rome mint rules must be followed at Eastern mints or the coins must be classified/ignored as barbarous. They were wrong. Alexandria did it, too. Whether these were accidents or on purpose will be hard to prove. There are many rare variations from these mint so the fact that we don't have a lot of them does not prove anything. Can you show a Domna obverse that die links to any of these reverses? That I would like to see. Obviously my interest in this subject is more in the Domna coins with male reverses (mostly military). Even coins with COS dates on the reverse are not mules, IMO, unless you can prove that the mint saw anything odd about pairing reverses as was convenient when necessary. Mules are accidental. There are too many of these to be accidental.
How do you plan to clean it? Denarii from this time period had a pretty high copper content, so I hope you plan to avoid using anything acidic.
Here's a Domna from Emesa with the VENER VICT reverse type: Julia Domna, AD 193-211 Roman AR Denarius; 2.74 gm, 18.2 mm Emesa, AD 193-197 Obv: IVLIA DOMNA AVG, bare-headed and draped bust, right Rev: VENER VICT, Venus standing left, holding apple and scepter Refs: RIC 630; BMCRE 422, RSC 188a; RCV --
