Middle Saxon "Hammered Silver" Issues

King Offa (757 – 796): Read about King Offa

Wulfred (Archbishop of Canterbury) (805 – 832):

WSax-6079: Wulfred Middle Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. Portrait penny, Canterbury (Archbishops of Canterbury) with SAEBERHT as the moneyer. Group III, WVLFRED ARCHIEPI and AEBERHT MONETA. North 240/1, Spink 889. BMC 26, circa 815-23. Excellent grade with just a small ragged edge at 12 o’clock. Rare. (E) £1,875

Coenwulf (King of Mercia) (796 – 821):

WSax-6442: Coenwulf Middle Saxon Kings of Mercia Hammered Silver Penny. Portrait penny, Canterbury with DVDA as the moneyer. Group II, Spink 915. BMC 26, circa 815-23. Excellent grade with small edge chips at 7 o’clock. Ex Mack, Lockett and Spink. See tickets here. In 1975 this coin was sold as part of the Mack collection by Glendinnings (see here). The estimate was £900 - £1,000 (£5,032.46 in today’s money – accurate as of Sept 2017). Rare and with excellent pedigree. (E) £2,495

Eadmund (936-946):

WSax-5772: Eadmund Middle Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. 936-46 AD. Kings of all England era. Moneyer Aelfwald, B.M.C. I. Extra image added here. Full flan, toned, problem-free. Spink 1105. A lovely example. (E) £890

Late Saxon "Hammered Silver" Issues

Aethelred II (978-1016): Read about Aethelred II

WSax-6756: Aethelred II Hammered Silver Saxon Penny – Rare Mint. B.M.C. IVa. Late Saxon, 997 - 1003 AD. Long cross type. Exeter mint town. Spink 1151. Moneyer WULFSIGE. Large bust and strong legends. Rare mint and very nice grade. (E) £485

WSax-5995: Aethelred II Hammered Silver Saxon Penny – Rare Mint. B.M.C. I. Late Saxon, 1009 - 1017 AD. Last short cross type. Exeter mint town. Spink 1154. Moneyer WULFSIGE. Rare mint. £385

WSax-6425: Aethelred II Hammered Silver Saxon Penny – Rarer Mint. B.M.C. IIIa. Late Saxon, 991 - 997AD. Crux type. Totnes mint town. Moneyer AELFSTAN. Spink 1148. Ex Bonham’s auction 2006. Rarer mint. (E) £425

WSax-6098: Aethelred II Hammered Silver Saxon Penny. B.M.C. IVa. Late Saxon, 997 - 1003 AD. Long cross type. Bath mint town. Moneyer EDSTAN. Superb grade and a very rare mint. Spink 1151. There is only one recorded Bath penny for Aethelred II on the EMC Database. Sold with a very old ticket (see here) which looks to be pre WW2 in date. A very nice grade coin from a rare mint and with provenance. (E) £765

WSax-6194: Aethelred II Hammered Silver Saxon Penny. B.M.C. VIII var. Late Saxon, 1003-09 AD. Helmet type. London mint town. Moneyer PVLGAR. Extra annulets in the first and third reverse quarters – an extremely rare ECCLIASTICAL issue. Unusual varieties with Ecclesiastical devices are nearly always exclusively from the East Anglian mints. This is London and the first I’ve ever seen. Hild type E, Spink 1152 var, North 775 var. No examples known for B.M.C or in Scandinavia. Not on the E.M.C. database. Sold with three tickets (an old one shown here, a Mike Vosper ticket and a Tim Owen ticket). A very rare coin. £895

WSax-6738: Aethelred II Hammered Silver Saxon Penny. B.M.C. IVa. Late Saxon, 997 - 1003 AD. Long cross type. York mint town. ÐVRVLF.MO.EOFR (Thorulf of York). Spink 1151. Viking test cut to obverse. Cheap. £285

WSax-6745: Aethelred II Hammered Silver Saxon Penny. B.M.C. IVa. Late Saxon, 997 - 1003 AD. Long cross type. London mint town. Moneyer SIBPINE or Sibwine. Spink 1151. An unusual coin in that the three reverse Viking peck (test) marks, done with the tip of a very pointed Viking dagger in the +SIB quarter, are actually raised up as opposed to incuse or cut, which is what you’d normally expect to see. An excellent obverse portrait with good, strong legends. £325 RESERVED (S.M.11-5-20)

WSax-6831: Aethelred II Hammered Silver Saxon Penny – Very Rare Mint. B.M.C. IIIa. Late Saxon, 991 - 997AD. Crux type. Dorchester mint town. Moneyer PVLFNOD. Spink 1148. Ex Elmore-Jones collection (1971), DNW auction (2014). Dorchester rate at £1,500 in Spink 2020. The coin has a slight edge crack (3 o’clock obverse). The marks on the obverse and reverse that look like cracks are do NOT go through to the other sides. They are either die cracks or minor surface stress marks. The coin rings good and true when lightly dropped. A very rare coin with excellent provenance. £885

Cnut (1016-1035): Read about Cnut.

WSax-6448: Cnut Late Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. Pointed helmet type (1024-30), B.M.C. xiv. Blundered and retrograde images – a contemporary imitation of possibly Continental origins. We’re all aware of the later Norman practice of test cutting Henry 1^st pennies, indicating that contemporary counterfeits were a serious issue at the time, but how many of us have actually seen Saxon and Norman contemporary counterfeits? This coin would fool anyone in Saxon / Norman times (and now), assuming they were illiterate, which many people were. A rare and interesting coin requiring much research. Ex Spink. £385

WSax-4485: Cnut Late Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. B.M.C. XVI- Short cross type (1029-35/6), “+MANNA-ON-NORD”. Extra image added here. Spink 1159. Rarer Norwich mint. £349

WSax-6011: Cnut Late Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. B.M.C. XVI - Short cross type (1029-35/6), “+AEGELPINE ON EOF”. Spink 1159. York mint. £349

WSax-6050: Cnut Late Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. B.M.C. XVI - Short cross type (1029-35/6), “+GODMAN ON EORK”. Spink 1159. York mint. £349

WSax-6088: Cnut Late Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. B.M.C. XVI - Short cross type (1029-35/6), “+AEGELRIC O SCEFT”. Spink 1159. Shaftsbury mint. No examples of Shaftsbury Cnut pennies in the Mack (1975) collection and only a single example (+ ÆLRIC ON SCEFTE) on the EMC database. A very rare mint coin. £795

WSax-6334: Cnut Late Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. B.M.C. XVI - Short cross type (1029-35/6), “+BLACAMAN O SNO”. Spink 1159. Nottingham mint. An extremely rare mint coin. Ex Cnut hoard of 1993, ex Sharp collection, ex Baldwins, ex Spink, ex Lord Stewartby collection. Sold with three tickets (two shown here). Dr John Sharp (1644-1714), Archbishop of York from 1691 was an enthusiastic collector and student of coins and medals; his interest seems to have begun around 1687 when, as Rector of St Giles in the Fields, he ‘found it a good divertisement in the evening’. In contrast to nearly all his numismatic forbears and contemporaries who were interested in Ancient Greece and Rome, Sharp selected the coinages of the British Isles and, to a lesser extent, the Colonies and Continental Europe, as his chosen fields. He wrote his ‘Observations on the Coinage of England with a letter to Mr [Ralph] Thoresby’ in 1698-99, which was to circulate amongst numismatists in manuscript form for nearly a century before being finally printed in 1785. Subsequent owners of the Sharp collection evidently added to the collection. The historical sequence of ownership of the collection runs as follows:

(i) Dr John Sharp (1644-1714), Archbishop of York;

(ii) John Sharp (1674-1726), eldest son of the Archbishop, of Grafton Park, Northamptonshire;

(iii) Dr Thomas Sharp (1693-1758), his brother, who was Archdeacon of Northumberland and Prebendary of Durham;

(iv) His son Dr John Sharp (1723-1792), Vicar of Hartburn, Perpetual Curate of Bamburgh, who succeeded his father as Archdeacon of Northumberland and who oversaw extensive restoration of the largely-ruined Bamburgh Castle;

(v) His daughter Anne Jemima Sharp (1762-1816), who bequeathed it in her will to her uncle Granville Sharp (1735-1813), the prominent Anti-Slavery campaigner. In the event Granville died before his niece, so that on her death in 1819 it passed to her first cousin, another great-granddaughter of the Archbishop:

(vi) Catherine Sharp (1770-1843) of Clare Hall, near Barnet, whose husband Rev. Andrew Boult took the name Sharp on marriage;

(vii) Her nephew Thomas Barwick Lloyd-Baker (1807-86), the social reformer and ornithologist who was also a direct descendant of the Archbishop through his maternal grandfather William Sharp (1729-1810), George III’s surgeon; thence by descent.

During the 1960s and 1970s material from the celebrated Archbishop Sharp Collection was sold through the agency of dealers A.H. Baldwin & Sons, and Owen Parsons of Gloucester. There were auctions of Continental Coins (Sotheby & Co., 14 March 1966) and the particularly important English Coins and Medals Charles I – Anne (and Colonial Coins) held by Glendining & Co., 5 October 1977. The cataloguer of the latter sale drew attention to the distinctive toning found on many of the Archbishop Sharp silver coins, a feature which applies equally to the piece offered here. Some of these have been studied and occasionally referenced in the past. This coin £1,895

WSax-6754: Cnut Late Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. B.M.C. VIII - Quatrefoil type (1017-23), “+AELFPI ON LEHER”. Spink 1159. The rare Leicester mint. There is a minor split after the N of ON. A rare coin. £525

WSax-6865: Cnut Late Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. B.M.C. VIII - Quatrefoil type (1017-23), “+ELLEPINE ON LEC”. Spink 1159. The rarer Chester (Welsh Borders) mint. A rarer mint and one from a very interesting part of the country. £465

Harold I (1035-1040): Read about Harold I

WSax-6591: Harold “Harefoot” 1st Hammered Silver Saxon Penny. Late Saxon – Fleur-de-Lis type (1036-35). B.M.C. V, 1038-40. PVLFPINE O GRA – Cambridge mint. Sold with old tickets (see here). Wavy flan but beautifully toned and otherwise problem-free. There were no Harold 1^st Cambridge coins of any type in the famous Elmore Jones collection (such an extensive accumulation that it makes an excellent yardstick). £945

WSax-6910: Harold “Harefoot” 1^st late Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. Silver Jewel Cross B.M.C.1 penny, 1036-38 only. + ON LINCOLI – Lincoln mint town. Sold with an old ticket (see here). Wavy flan but beautifully toned and otherwise problem-free. It was hard to photograph this coin with my normal camera so I’ve included this low resolution image here. Unbelievably, there were no Harold 1^st Lincoln coins of any type in the famous Elmore Jones collection (such an extensive accumulation that it makes an excellent yardstick). On the EMC database, there is no mention of this exact moneyer. £875

Edward the Confessor (1042-1066): Read about Edward The Confessor.

WSax-5502: Edward The Confessor Saxon Hammered Silver Penny. Late Saxon – pyramids type (1065-66). B.M.C. XV. Stafford (GODSPINE). Extra image added here. Very rare mint town. £985

Harold II (1066 only): Read about Harold II ("Last of the Saxons")

WSax-6520: Harold II Hammered Silver Saxon Penny. Very late Saxon – PAX and Sceptre type, 1066 only. B.M.C. I. Spink 1186. GODRIC on THEOTI (East Anglia) mint. Excellent legends with no cracks, chips, repairs or any other issues. SOLD