CNG 102, Lot: 1283. Estimate $1000. Sold for $3250. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

DENMARK. Svend I Tveskæg (Forkbeard). Circa 986-1014. AR Penny (21mm, 1.82 g, 8h). Imitation of Æthelred II Crux/Small Cross type. Lund (?) mint. Struck from dies of the moneyer Arnketill taken from the York mint in England. Struck circa 997-1014. Draped bust left; trefoi-tipped scepter before / + ΛRNCУTEL M–O EOFR, small cross pattée. Blackburn, English 23 (dies E/o); R.H.M. Dolley and V.J. Butler, “Some ‘Northern’ Variants, etc. of the ‘CRUX’ Issue of Æthelræd II,” in BNJ XXX.II (1961), pl.XVIII, 609 (same dies); Malmer chain 101, dies 15/1075; Hild. 609 (same dies); SCBI 20 (Mack), 912 (same rev. die); SCBI 7 (Copenhagen), 222 (same rev. die). Near EF. Very rare – Blackburn lists five examples from this die combination.

This coin is struck from official dies taken from the English mint of York, muling the Crux type of Æthelred II on the obverse and on the reverse Æthelred's Intermediate Small Cross type by the York moneyer Arnketill. Malmer's die study of the Anglo-Scandinavian coinage solidified the view that three geographic groups exist, correlating generally to the medieval kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. These dies are extensively linked to a chain that falls in the 'southern' group. It is thought that the coins of this group were likely struck in the Danish kingdom at the mint of Lund, with some possibly belonging to Sigtuna. Although these coins imitating the Anglo-Saxon series were struck until c. 1020, when Cnut the Great was striking his own coinage, this particular type, among the earliest issues, probably did not even last to the end of the reign of Svend Forkbeard.