it is probably unofficial, though the
style is
good.
edit- this is in response to an email --
"Yes, I believe that the coin is most likely unofficial. The
style is
good, but many unofficial coins have
very good style, so
good that only a specialist might notice. Pierre
Bastien even speculated that
mint employees sometimes moonlighted and made some unofficial coins. Despite the
good style, there are some problems...obviously, the first is the
star. There is an
VRBS ROMA with
star, but it is in the
exergue -- see
RIC VII Arles 351. Perhaps a
mint engraver was confused and placed the
star at the top, but there are a few other issues. The
bust is fairly narrow at the base, typically this
area is more spread out. On the
reverse, the wolf's
head looks unusual, with a small snout. The haunches are raised very high, generally the wolf's back is more horizontal, or slopes down not up. Exceptions can always be found and the stylistic differences alone are not such a big problem, but coupled with the
star it makes a lot of difference. At best, I would say it might be an engravers error that slipped out of the
mint, but I am more inclined to believe that it is unofficial."
looking at the picture again, I noticed that the stars are also different from normal. Usually they are in a straight line, on this coin the left
star is well below the right one.
