Assigned by Coupland to Melle

411, Lot: 499. Estimate $300. Sold for $340. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CAROLINGIANS. Louis 'le Pieux' (the Pious). As Emperor Louis I, 814-840. AR Denier (19mm, 1.38 g, 9h). Class 3. Unspecified (Melle) mint. Struck 822-840. + HLVDOVVICVS IIIP, cross pattée; pellets in quarters / +PISTIΛNΛ RELICIO, temple façade. Coupland, Money –, but since assigned in his schema to Group M (for Melle); Depeyrot 1179; M&G 472; MEC 1, –. Good VF, toned.

From the Simon Coupland Collection, purchased from Andy Singer, February 2009. Ex Sombart – Delorme Collin du Bocage (10 October 2008), lot 55 (part of); Trésor de Luzancy, no. 96.

This coin formed part of the important Carolingian hoard found at Luzancy (Seine-et-Marne) in 2008, and sold at auction shortly afterwards. It can be attributed to the mint at the silver mines of Melle on the grounds of its style. Melle was probably the only silver mine in the Carolingian empire during the ninth century, and as a result was consistently among the most productive of Frankish mints. Two groups of Louis the Pious’ Christiana religio coins (Groups M1 and M2) can be attributed to the mint on the basis of find distribution and stylistic similarities to other Melle coins, namely Louis’ preceding coinage type and Christiana religio coins of Charles the Bald. This coin has a characteristic found only on a few late coins of Group M1, namely that the points around the obverse cross become rhomboid rather than round. As with other later M1 coins, the letters are formed with punches, while the temple is squat and fills the field, with a right-angled roof with gable ends, and a distinct central cross. [S. Coupland]