Are Two Heads Better Than One?

I've had a Vab-dog (I can never remember his full name) and Aurelian coin on my list for years and still haven't got one. I always dig double bust coins!

That lettering looks decidedly non-Roman in style, in comparison to other Vabalathus coins I've seen. Given the scratch-marks all over it, I'd suspect some tooling has gone down here.

I've been doing a bit more in-depth research into this coin of the Palmyrene Empire, especially the lettering. I didn't find anything specific to the lettering, but quite a few images of this type of coin with the H mint mark turned up. As can be seen from the comparison with one of the coins found on ACSearch the lettering is almost identical to that on my coin. A few contributors mentioned that the coin was a snub to Aurelian as he is on the reverse. Perhaps the Palmyrene style lettering is a further snub?


With the coin in hand it appears to have been rather roughly cleaned (scraped?), though whatever it was it looks to have been done a very long time ago. The coin was inexpensive, so I don't mind the scratch marks.