Important Concordia Type Thrymsa

CNG 99, Lot: 1206. Estimate $15000. Sold for $27500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON, Pale Gold Phase. Circa 650-675. AV Thrymsa (12mm, 1.29 g, 9h). Type II.i (’Concordia’ or ‘Clasped hands’). Radiate bust right / Clasped hands; NIB (B retrograde) above, A below. Sutherland 23-5 (unlisted dies) = A&W 328-30; Belfort 6625 (uncertain Merovingian); Metcalf –; SCBI 63 (BM), 19-20 and p. 93, note 74 (this coin cited); EMC 2008.0030 = Coin Register 2009, 53 (this coin); North 16; SCBC 765. EF, traces of luster, light marks. Extremely rare – one of only four known, one of two in private hands.

Ex Dix, Noonan, & Web 58 (25 June 2003), lot 384. Found Maidstone, near Kent, May 2003.

Many of the early Anglo-Saxon thrymsa types were derived from Roman sources. In his 1948 study of the Anglo-Saxon gold coinage, Sutherland ascribed the prototype for the exceedingly rare ‘clasped hands’ type to a concordia type antoninianus of the Romano-British usurper Carausius. More recently, though, silver coins of Carausius with this type have come to light (see Triton XVII, lot 787), providing another possible source. Most other Roman-derived thrymsas take bronze and gold issues of the Constantinian or Valentinian dynasty for their models. Anglo-Saxon moneyers likely encountered these earlier coins either through sporadic continued circulation or chance discovery of hoards and isolated specimens.