430, Lot: 491. Estimate $150. Sold for $170. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON, Continental Sceattas. Circa 690-715/20. AR Sceatt (10.5mm, 1.11 g, 4h). Series D, type 2c. Mint in northern Frisia (prob. Wijnaldum). Struck under Radbod, King of Frisia. Crude bust right; row of pellets behind, apa in runic before / Cross pommée, pellets in angles; rosette below, blundered legend around. Abramson 8.10; SCBI 69 (Abramson), 155; SCBC 792. Good VF, find patina, light deposits.

W. Op den Velde & D.M. Metcalf, in “The Monetary Economy of the Netherlands, c. 690 – c. 715 and the Trade with England: A Study of the Sceattas of Series D,” JMP 90 (2003), undertake a fundamental reexamination of this vast series. Comparing site finds and hoard analysis, they discover a very broad circulation in Britain, not concentrated in any particular area, and a very limited circulation on the continent. This suggests not only that the coinage was indeed struck in Frisia, as has been known for some time, but that it served as an export coinage, likely designed to pay for British trade goods. The authors note that the chronology of the series – circa 690-715/20 – fits closely with the reign of the Frisian king Radbod (alt. Redbad). Radbod and the Frisians were in near-constant combat with the Franks to their south, advancing at one point as far south as Cologne. He was to be the last of the independent Frisian monarchs, and on his death the region was firmly conquered by Charles Martel.