Viking Issue in the Name of Alfred

Sale: CNG 78, Lot: 2128. Estimate $2000.  Closing Date: Wednesday, 14 May 2008.  Sold For $2450. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON, Danish East Anglia. Imitations of Alfred the Great. Circa 885-915. AR Penny (1.58 g, 5h). Imitating ‘Guthram’ type of moneyer Cuthberht. + ÆLRED FE, small cross pattée within circle / CVDB/ERHT in two lines; \ • \ between. SCBI 50 (Hermitage), 198; BMC 232 (Alfred); North 475/1; SCBC 966. Good VF, toned.

From the Ross Schraeder Collection.

Although East Anglia was not within the Mercian sphere of influence during Alfred's lifetime, his coinage was popular there and became the standard currency, which led to their being extensively imitated. Mark 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. While the weight of the present coin is not an issue, the style and mispellings clearly mark it as being among the imitations.