I look at that thick neck, thick
head and it seems to me the
portrait is more like one of the tetrachs than
Severus Alexander. Perhaps I am over reacting, but I do agree the
reverse border is strange, as if taken from another coin with the
type arranged differently on the
flan. I think we should be looking more for reasons to find it right than reasons to find it wrong, and regarded that way, I just do not see anything distinguishing it from a forgery and several things that suggest it is. By the way, I am not referring to the flatness of the fields, but rather the dull character of the surface, much more like a pressed gold coin than a struck one, which in this condition I would expect to have
mint lust and metal flow lines, rather than a dull, matt surface.