Sale: CNG 75, Lot: 1459. Estimate $300.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 23 May 2007.  Sold For $600. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON, Kings of Northumbria. Aethelred II. First reign, 841-843/4. Æ Styca (1.10 g, 6h). Phase II, group Ai. York mint; Leofthegn, moneyer. +AEdELREd REX, four-petaled flower / +LEOFDEtn mONET (N retrograde), Celtic cross with central pellet and pellet on each limb. Pirie 172 (same dies); North 188; SCBC 865. Good VF. Attractive surfaces. Very rare issue with flower.

From the Beowulf Collection.

Pirie notes that coins employing ‘secular’ obverse symbols, such as the flower on this coin, must belong Aethelred’s second reign. This view has been strongly refuted, however, by metallurgic analyses (see S. Lyon, “Review Article” in BNJ 66 (1996), pp. 171-4).