URBS...URBS...What was I going to say? (What came in the mail today part 2)

I have not seen Millenium Sear for this period but his pattern has been to ignore mintmarks let alone dots so I would expect all coins shown above to have the same Sear number. Has this changed? Book review?

 

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I like your coin very much, vlaha. There are a number of interesting variations in the VRBS types to collect. I've recently added three to my set but haven't photographed them all yet. Here's a scarce type that mules the ROMA obverse with the two soldiers/one standard reverse. Why these cross-breeds were made is a mystery to me and I'd welcome any theories...

 

Theories:
1. The mint was producing both types at the same time, mixing up die pairings would be easy. There are examples of rare pairings where the officina that usually supported one ruler was used for another. I tend away from this because these are too common to be accidents and we don't have regal portraits with wolf reverses.

2. There could have been a shortage of obverse dies of some variety and a surplus of UR's. Some one could have decided that they needed to strike so many coins that day that any obverse die would do. After all, when they ask why you didn't strike 100,000 coins before lunch, they don't want to hear that you ran out of some die.

I'm sure there are other good ideas. Brainstorm it and see what seems reasonable to you.

 

I don't have RIC available to me at the moment, but if I recall correctly, both the soldiers/standard and Vota reverse types occur from a number of different mints, which suggests a broad intentionality. In the case of the soldiers/standard reverse, there may have been an attempt to indicate that the VRBS coins were equivalent in denomination to their regal counterparts.

The Vota mules are smaller, with the same general dimensions of the two-victories types. There would have been no confusion as to their denomination since they were the smallest coins around.

But there is something to be said for the possibility of hasty mass production due to economic imperative. These mules are carelessly made by Roman standards. I searched high and low for the best examples I could find, and these are all I could come up with.

An VRBS/Vota mule...

 

As I understood it the Vota mules were later, after Constantine II died, increasing weight on the theory that, for some reason the mint had Urbs dies left over. Of course we don't know when the soldiers mules were made either. I could see the votas being issued after the mint knew they were switching to the FTR types at a future date but needed to turn out the old style coinage until then with whatever dies were available. They are considerable more scarce than the soldiers mules. I simply do not know.

 

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