Superb Early Danelaw Penny

Sale: Triton XI, Lot: 1649. Estimate $1500.  Closing Date: Monday, 7 January 2008.  Sold For $2750. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON, Danelaw. Imitations of Alfred the Great. Circa 885-915. AR Penny (1.26 g, 12h). Two-Line (Horizontal) type. Ceneferth, moneyer. Struck circa 885-895. +EF FR ED RE (first F inverted), small cross pattée / CENE dREF (NE ligate, some letters retrograde) in two lines; \ • • between, • below. SCBI -; BMC -; North 475/1; SCBC 966. Superb EF, light gray toning with slight golden hues. Well struck from fresh dies.

M. Blackburn in "The Ashdon (Essex) Hoard and the Currency of the Southern Danelaw in the Late Ninth Century," BNJ 59 (1989), pp. 13-18, gives three criteria for judging Viking imitations of Alfred's coins: light weight, anomalous style, and poor literacy, stating that if two of these conditions applied, one could be reasonably sure of an imitation. This coin, at 1.26 grams, is well below the standard of 1.60-1.45 grams for Alfred's coins, and not far from the Viking standard of circa 1.35 grams. Additionally, both Alfred and the moneyer's names are rendered with inverted and retrograde letters. The imitations of Alfred’s two-line type are among the earliest coinage of the Danelaw, and were struck at both the York and southern mints (see M. Blackburn, “The Coinage of Scandinavian York,” in: R.A. Hall, et al., Aspects of Anglo-Scandinavian York (York: York Archaeological Trust, 2004), for the most recent survey of the early Danelaw coinages).