Sale: Triton VIII, Lot: 1752. Estimate $10000.  Closing Date: Monday, 10 January 2005.  Sold For $12000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

ANGLO-SAXON. 'Crispus' Issue. Circa 660-670 AD. Pale AV Thrymsa (1.33 gm; 12h). London mint. CBISPVO COB CAES, helmeted and draped bust right, helmet shown as a crest over "corn-rowed" hair / +RASEAC, and in Runic script, DELAIONA (of London), crude wreath enclosing a cross on a base, limbs terminating in pellets-in-annulets, two crosses in the lower quarters; in exergue, uncertain (Runic?) symbol. Sutherland 27 (plate II, 5); Metcalf pg. 44; North 18; SCBC 764. EF, light surface marks. Extremely rare and among the finest. ($10,000)

Ex Classical Numismatic Group 49 (17 March 1999), lot 2181; William L. Subjack Collection (Nummorum Auctiones 11 (5 June 1998), lot 6. The earlier pedigree cited in those catalogues is incorrect.

The Merovingian gold tremissis served as the model for the thrymsa, or gold shilling, which was the first native British coinage after the Celts' subjugation six centuries earlier. The design of this tremissis was drawn from coins previously in circulation, to which were added elements of Germanic art and language. Obviously coins of Constantine the Great's eldest son, Crispus, were still familiar to the inhabitants of Britain three hundred years after their issuance. It is even possible to speculate on the mint of the prototype Roman bronze. The exergual symbol, if it is not a Runic sign, is probably adapted from the exergual mark on folles of Siscia (cf. RIC VII 181).