I was recently in a classic 'old junk shop' run by an aged father and his son. It wasn't really that junky just a very mixed bag of all kinds of things, including several hundred old coins for sale, all of them marked with dates and place of origin in a way that suggested whomever had done it seemed to have some idea what they were talking about. It seemed to be the father, but he was quite old and not that communicative. There were a lot of Roman coins and various others. One that caught my eye was listed as Hannibal 218-202 BC, Carthage and it had an elephant on it. Being generally interested in the ancient world but in no way a numismatist I thought this was pretty cool and bought it. Later I googled Hannibal coins and saw that some had sold for rather large sums of money, and although I am almost certain I am going to be told the one I have is not the kind that is super rare, I thought i'd still at least sign up and see what you all had to say about it, if anything. I must say it has certainly sparked my interest in ancient coins though so I plan to try to learn more, but in the meantime does anyone care to hazard a guess as to the authenticity or origin of this coin? here are both sides. Thanks!
Hi again. In response to the request for the weight and diameter, I can only provide approximations because due to COVID all the stores are closed and unfortunately I don't have the tools to weigh or even measure it precisely. However here are two pictures that compare it to a Canadian loonie, ie $1 coin, which is 26.5mm in diameter and 1.95mm in width. I would estimate the coin with the elephant to be about 32mm but you can tell as well as I can. Re the width it appears to be quite similar to the loonie at the top of the picture but much thicker near the bottom. Again, you can see as well as I can.
I'd take it to a local coin shop to have it weighed if one was open but pretty much everything is now in lockdown here. I hope this helps enough to permit some analysis. happy to answer any more questions if I can.
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