Elagabalus' silver coins with
obverse legend IMP ANTONINVS AVG fall into two groups.
One group, comprising
denarii only, is in
provincial style and shares most of its
reverse types with another group characterized by the
obverse legend ANTONINVS
PIVS FEL (or
FELIX) AVG. See for example the
IMP ANTONINVS AVG
denarius illustrated below from
CoinArchives, showing the famous
Stone of
Emesa reverse type SANCT DEO SOLI ELAGABAL, which is much more frequently found with the other
obverse legend, ANTONINVS
PIVS FEL (or
FELIX) AVG. Obviously the
IMP ANTONINVS AVG
denarii in this
style, and using these
reverse types, were struck at Elagabalus' main Eastern
mint, active in 218-9 and perhaps located at
Nicomedia, where the emperor spent the
winter of 218-9 on
his way from
Antioch to
Rome.
The second
IMP ANTONINVS AVG group, to which your coin belongs, comprises both
denarii and
antoniniani, and because of its virtually
Roman style is usually attributed to
Rome. I think it was struck at a branch
mint using Rome-mint engravers, however, because its
reverse types are always different from those of
Rome, because the Rome-mint coins form an unbroken sequence of interlocking
obverse legends and
reverse types into which it seems impossible to insert these
IMP ANTONINVS AVG coins, and finally because the
IMP ANTONINVS AVG coins were issued only in silver, not also in bronze and gold like virtually every Rome-mint
type.
This second
IMP ANTONINVS AVG group in quasi
Roman style was produced in 219-220, and may have been the reformed continuation of the Eastern series described above, that started with the
obverse legend ANTONINVS
PIVS FEL (or
FELIX) AVG, and then continued with
IMP ANTONINVS AVG. We cannot, on present evidence, say exactly where and for what reasons it might have been struck.
