411, Lot: 512. Estimate $200. Sold for $300. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CAROLINGIANS. Charles le Chauve (the Bald). As Charles II, King of West Francia, 840-877. AR Denier (21mm, 1.67 g, 2h). Cross and temple type. Unspecified (Orléans) mint. Struck 840-864. + CΛRLVS REX FR, cross pattée; pellets in quarters / XPISTIΛNΛ RELICIO, temple façade. Coupland, Early, Group D; Depeyrot 1189; M&G 1159; MEC 1, 846-9. Good VF, toned.

From the Simon Coupland Collection. Ex Crinon FPL 27 (October 2000).

Charles the Bald's Christiana religio coinage was the subject of a detailed study in the Numismatic Chronicle in 1991, and this coin is a splendid early example of Group D, from Orléans. As on comparable coins minted under Louis the Pious, characteristic features include large, sprawling lettering (in particular the S on the reverse and the leaning, unbarred As), except for the first I in the word RELIGIO, which is small and sits in the angle of the L. The temple is small with a steep roof, and as on this coin, the interior roof lines sometimes cross. Many of these traits are found on Charles's mint-signed temple coins from Orléans, and the unusual form of the LI is paralleled in the mint name AVRELIANIS on the local Gratia Dei Rex coinage. This is evidently a coin struck early in Charles's reign, when the dies were engraved freehand; on later coins they were cut with punches. [S. Coupland]