In my view, the author does not address the
Republican reverse as an "issue", but rather folds it into the argument in support.
Apart from many other numismatic objections, it is a very serious weakness in the political messaging of coinage, akin to saying that a person running for governor in a U.S. state in the Rocky Mountains in 2022 decided to make a campaign ad featuring the explorer
Henry Hudson's ship Half-Moon, even if no one in government
had likely ever mentioned
Henry Hudson's name more than a few times and certainly hadn't named a river or town or put
his ship on a coin (which happened with Hudson far more often than Minucius Augurinus! ). Yet that same energetic governor to-be ignored every iconic person and well-known image appearing on a coin in
North America from
James I to GHW Bush. An episode of
Star Trek also
comes to mind.
In the absence of historical references, and the known existence of fantasy imitations manufactured around the time of the purported discovery, the argument is quite a stretch.