CNG 108, Lot: 25. Estimate $2000. Sold for $2600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CARTHAGE, Second Punic War. Circa 220-205 BC. AR Half Shekel (20mm, 3.49 g, 11h). Struck during the expedition to Sicily, circa 213-210 BC. Head of Melkart left, wearing laurel wreath / Elephant advancing right; Punic ‘A’ in exergue. MAA –; cf. Visonà 55 (shekel); Walker 29; Burnett, Enna 123; CNP 447; SNG Copenhagen 383; SNG Newham Davis 107. Good VF, lightly toned, a little off center, struck from worn dies. Rare.

From the Jonathan P. Rosen Collection. Ex Heritage 3054 (7 April 2017), lot 30019.

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.