I have been interested in the
denarii of
Julia Domna for fifty years now and time has grayed some of the details I wish I
had written down. Long ago I recall seeing one 'first legend' coin with the
obverse legend split DOM-NA rather than DO-MNA
as is found on all other coins in my experience. I do not recall the details or why I did not buy that coin (or even if it was for sale) but I always wanted to find a coin with that oddity.
Be careful what you wish for. I happened across what could possibly be the ugliest
Domna coin I have seen but it does have the DOM-NA split. The coin might be a bronze of unofficial nature but I believe it is a normal base silver (the
good stuff was about 50% in that period)
Rome mint denarius that has suffered more than most. The lowest stratum of surface I see is the porous
toned silver with grey and
red overlay. When I got the coin there was some
bronze disease (soft green) in a couple pits and treatment for that did not improve the appearance.
I believe the dies (other than the
legend split) are of reasonable
style for the period (there is a lot of variation in these) and offer 'normal' silver coins that strike me as of similar hand. Certainly it could be a copy die but it makes no sense to change the letter spacing if the goal was simple counterfeiting.
Does anyone recall seeing this die or another coin with a split other than the normal DO-MNA? Can you accept this die as a
Rome product? Now that I have this coin, my wish list has been altered from a coin with this split to a
decent coin with this split. I may not have 50 more years to wait so I'll
hope it
comes faster next time.