Valentinian II die/flan differences?

[arizonarobin]

I have this Valentinian II from Arles that seems odd to me.
The obverse seems to be struck on a flan that is too big and the reverse seems to be struck on
a flan that is a bit too small. Any opinions would be greatly appreciated as this has had my curiosity.

Valentinian II
Ae 22mm; 4.51g

DN VALENTINIANVS IVN PF AVG
pearl diadem?, draped and cuirassed bust right

REPARATIO REIPVB
Emperor standing facing, raising kneeling turreted woman and holding victory on globe

SCON (Arles)

should be RIC IX Arles 20c

Is this mismatched or is it supposed to look like this?

[SC]

Fantastic coin!  You are very lucky Robin.

My Ferrando book on Arelate is at home so I will look it up again later but my initial impression is that it is a mule, but a mule using dies of different sizes/denominations.

The reverse is an AE2 REPARATIO REIPVB and appears to be on a flan of the correct size or nearly so.  It is hard to tell as it is a little offset.  If I recall correctly 22mm would be within the size range of AE2s.

But the obverse clearly looks like it was a much smaller die.  I am not sure though what exactly was being struck contemporary with the REPARATIO REIPVB at Arelate.  The AE4 Vota certainly was but maybe that would be too small.  An AE3 Roma seated??

If I am correct then it would beg the question of whether this was an error struck at an official mint, the product of a completely unofficial imitator, or the work of a branch mint.  Ferrando believes that there was some sort of branch operation of the Arelate mint operating at times in Spain.  He does not give much information about this though.

Shawn

[rick2]

the obverse looks more like an Ae3
possibly they have reused a die dating back to valentinian I

do check the legend break as it s quite significant in this period

[SC]

Well, according to Ferrando that obverse legend was only used at Arelate with the AE2 REPARATIO REIPVB reverse.  It did not appear with any other coin type.  So technically your coin is not a mule.  However, it seems clear that the obverse die was engraved very small.  It seems as if the die cutter engraved it at AE3 size, perhaps out of habit when the new AE2 denominate was introduced?

It really is a neat coin.

Shawn

[stlnats]

Wonderful coin and very interesting.  I wonder if there are other examples of such dramatically mismatched obv/rev dies from the period.

 

[arizonarobin]

Thank you for the replies and information. They must have had to strike the reverse with near perfect precision to have a hope of getting it all on the flan.