Saxon Eyrir Weight

CNG 100, Lot: 2259. Estimate $1500. Sold for $2500. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON, Anglo-Viking (Danish East Anglia)(?). Late 9th century. PB Eyrir (Ounce) Weight (20mm, 21.18 g). Circular lead weight obverse inset with gilt Series D, type 2c sceat. Pit in reverse. Cf. G. Williams, “Anglo-Saxon and Viking Coin Weights,” in BNJ 69 (1999), no. 5 (for a similar lead weight with inset Porcupine-type sceat). Much as made. Very rare and interesting.

Reportedly found in Norfolk, 1980s.

Williams' analysis of the known weights of this type clearly places them in the Danelaw during the later ninth century, when the Viking economy was still bullion-based, and weights were used for weighing both coinage and bullion. Based on a value of 24-26.6 g for a Viking ounce (eyrir), this particular weight, at 21.18 g, is unusually light, about three grams shy of what is to be expected, though this could likely be attributed to a later removal of material from the reverse.

The purpose of the coins set into these weights remains uncertain, but Williams suggests that they served both a decorative and a practical function as a symbol of authority. Although the Viking economy was still pre-monetary, Williams notes that the Vikings were familiar with coinage and likely recognized that coin designs represented state authority. He also suggests that the Vikings were probably familiar with Anglo-Saxon coin weights, which were validated by the virtue of being stamped with official dies, and argues that the lack of coin dies for use on their own weights was remedied by applying a coin within each. Williams points out that the fact that some of the coins used were issued by Anglo-Saxon kings would have been irrelevant, as the vast majority of the Vikings were illiterate. The present example supports this idea, as the coin inset, a Series D sceat of Frisian origin, should have mostly fallen out of circulation in England by this time. Accordingly, the weight could not have been used to validate only a particular series.