CNG 91, Lot: 1456. Estimate $1500. Sold for $2300. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON, Kings of Wessex. Æthelstan. 924-939. AR Penny (21mm, 1.37 g, 6h). Small cross/Horizontal-Trefoil 1 (HT 1) type (BMC i). North Eastern I mint; Nother/Nothhere, moneyer. ÆÐEL•STAN RE+, small cross pattée / NOÐER MONE in two lines; +++ between, trefoils above and below. Blunt, Aethelstan 396; Forum Hoard 144; SCBI 34 (BM), 225 var. (spelling of Nother - NOÐEP); North 668; SCBC 1089. Good VF, lightly toned. Extremely rare moneyer, approximately eight examples known, all but one in public collections (Berlin, London, New York, and Rome; cf. M. Dolley, “A group of tenth century coins found at Mont-Saint-Michel,” BNJ 49 [1971], p. 5).

Beyond this issue of Æthelstan, the York moneyer Nother/Nothhere is only known on a unique coin in the name of the Norse king Anlaf Sihtricsson struck after his retaking of the city in 941 (Forum Hoard 385 = M. Dolley, op. cit., p. 4, c), and the later portrait issue of Eadmund (cf. CTCE p. 197, 268). At the same time, there is a portrait coin of Eadred with a moneyer Nother, but with an enigmatic mint signature BI, which may indicate Bedford (cf. CTCE 260 [incorrectly listing the coin under Eadmund, although the illustration of the coin on plate 23 clearly shows the obverse reading Eadgar]). Whether this is the same moneyer, moved to another mint, though, is uncertain.