Anglo-Saxon and Viking Coins from the Collection of an Underwriter

CNG 97, Lot: 971. Estimate $2000. Sold for $3000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON, Secondary Sceattas. Circa 725-745. AR Sceat (12mm, 0.86 g, 9h). Series QIB var. 2. Uncertain mint in East Anglia (Elig [Ely]?). Two figures standing facing, holding long cross in outer hands, with inner hands jointly holding a single long cross; trefoil above / Quadruped standing/crouching right, head left; pellets and lines in fields. Abramson 63-20; SCBI 63 (BM), –; Metcalf p. 489, fig., and n. 9 = SCBI 16 (Norweb) 61; North –; SCBC 808. EF, attractively toned.

From the Collection of an Underwriter. Ex Nomos FPL (Winter-Spring 2012), no 93; Classical Numismatic Group 54 (14 June 2000), lot 2096.

Formed by a dedicated collector with an eye for rarity and quality, the collection follows the course of early East Anglian numismatic history from the earliest sceatta coinages, through the varied silver pennies of the East Anglian kings, several of whom are only known from their coins, and also those pieces struck when the kingdom fell under Mercian hegemony. The imitative and later national coinages struck by the Vikings following their conquest in the 860s and brutal murder of Edmund, the last East Anglian king, are also well represented along with some of the early pieces struck by the kings of Wessex after their re-conquest of the eastern Danelaw.

There are several very desirable coins of great rarity and historical interest in the collection including two sceats of Beonna, a penny of Offa with a distinctive East Anglian portrait, a bold portrait type penny of Aethelstan I of East Anglia, pennies of the enigmatic rulers Eadwald and Aethelweard and an exceedingly rare penny in the name of Aethelstan II Guthrum.