Please Help Me Know What This Is.

It is supposed to be a denarius from the Roman Republic issued by T. Carisius - one side reads MONETA and shows Moneta (in this guise, she is a personification of the roman mint) and on the other side, which reads T CARISIVS, is an interesting scene showing a roman mint in operation - in the center are two dies, with tongs on one side for a mint worker to hold the upper die in place, and a hammer the other side to strike it. Issued 46BC. However, I have concerns about it - it looks like it might be a modern reproduction cast from an original.

Unfortunately I don't have a scale but this is the size of the coin. Thank you everyone for your feedback.

It is, sadly, a replica. There are several examples of this same basic copy listed on the FORVM fakes database, all copying off each other - this example shows the similarities best, and the obverse is the best place to observe them: note that both the listed fake, and your coin, have the same dent/dimple on the jaw, the same off-centring, and the same indentation on the obverse rim at about 9 o'clock. Example 2 and Example 3 also show the same obverse features. In comparison, there are numerous genuine examples of the three varieties for this coin, shown on this Wildwinds page.

It is not surprising that this specific coin type is duplicated - it is a quite popular theme for ancient coin collectors to collect coins that actually show the technology of the ancient coin minting process, and this coin is probably the best example of this in the entire Roman series.

I am just curious. Why do you need two ID's, "confusedguyhere" and "confusedinCa" And one can reasonably assume you won't always be confused so you might want to have an ID that will work for a long and successful stay on the coin board. Just my opinion of course.