CNG 103, Lot: 1167. Estimate $750. Sold for $850. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON, Kings of Wessex. Æthelstan. 924-939. AR Penny (21.5mm, 1.43 g, 9h). Small cross/Horizontal-Trefoil 1 (HT 1) type (BMC i). North Eastern I mint; Beso, moneyer. + ÆÐELSTΛ(N R)EX, small cross pattée / BESE/MOM in two lines; three crosses pattée between, trefoil above and below. Blunt, Aethelstan –; SCBI 34 (BM), –; North 668/1a; SCBC 1089. Good VF, deeply toned. Extremely rare moneyer for Æthelstan, and the first example of him on the HT 1 type.

From the estate of Thomas Bentley Cederlind. Ex Morton & Eden 72 (15 December 2014), lot 173.

Bese is unrecorded as a moneyer of Æthelstan, but is now known not only on the Horizontal-Trefoil type, as here, but also on the Hemlet type, likewise known from a single example: CNG 102, lot 1434 = Spink 223, lot 1352 = EMC 2013.0358. This moneyer is known from coins of the succeeding reigns of Edmund and Edred.