Triton XVIII, Lot: 405. Estimate $3000. Sold for $5500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CARTHAGE, Second Punic War. Circa 220-205 BC. AR Half Shekel (17mm, 3.36 g, 12h). Struck during the expedition to Sicily, circa 213-210 BC. Male head left, wearing laurel wreath / Elephant advancing right; Punic A in exergue. MAA –; cf. Visonà 55 (shekel); Burnett, Enna 130/123 (same obv./rev. die); SNG Copenhagen 383; SNG Newham Davis 107. Good VF, underlying luster, toned, struck a little softly, trace deposits on reverse. Rare.

These coins were originally attributed to the Punic mint in Spain, but subsequent hoard evidence has established that they were struck either in Carthage or a Carthaginian mint in Sicily during the Second Punic War (see A. Walker, “Some Hoards from Sicily and a Carthaginian Issue of the Second Punic War” in Studies Mildenberg, p. 275, and note 6). Burnett (Enna) argued, based on the fixed die axes of the coins, that this issue was struck in Carthage, but for circulation in Sicily.