CNG 109, Lot: 872. Estimate $750. Sold for $1100. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON, Kings of Northumbria. Æthelred I. Second reign, 789-796. AR Sceatt (13mm, 0.88 g, 1h). Phase Ia. York mint; Cuthgils, moneyer. + ΓREDED around central cross / CVD CLS at sides of ‘shrine’: cross potent on pelleted triangular base. Booth, Coinage 34–8; Pirie 22; Pirie, Guide, Phase Ia, 3.1f; SCBI 69 (Abramson), 889; North 184; SCBC 857. VF, toned. Very rare.

This exceptional type was once thought to depict the Shrine of St. Cuthbert, based on an interpretation of the reverse legend as SCT CVÐ. However, current scholarship agrees that the type belongs firmly to the series of small bronze stycas bearing the names of moneyers, and that the legend is more properly interpreted as the CVD CLS, for the moneyer Cuthgils