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Auction: 1011 - Ancient, English & Foreign Coins, Commemorative Medals & Numismatic Books
Lot: 173

Mercia, Offa (757-796), light coinage, Penny, 1.27g, London, phase 2a/b, c.785, Cuthberht, small flan, non portrait type, horizontal pelleted line dividing offa/+rex, cross with a pellet each side above, cross below, rev. horizontal pelleted line dividing cuÐbe/erht (CEB 24; N.284; S.904), some stains, very fine, only the second known example of this moneyer and type, extremely rare Estimate £ 1,000-1,500 provenance Found, Kent, c.1996 Recorded with the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, EMC 2010.0265. Cuthberht is only known for one other Penny of Offa which is that published by CE Blunt in his key paper on the Coinage of Offa in Anglo Saxon Coins, studies presented to F M Stenton, 1961 (see plate IV no. 24). Blunt later had doubts about this coin due its base metal. In the absence of metallurgical analysis it is impossible to determine if Blunt 24 is a genuine issue and it remains possible, if it is a forgery, that it was copied from a now lost coin. However this new example, struck from different dies, suggests otherwise and may solve a numismatic riddle. The coin has been examined by the leading specialist on Offa´s coinage and there is no doubt about it being anything other than genuine. The style with the distinctivce Ð with left curving stem and the obverse and reverse central dividing line is found on other coins of Offa notably those by struck by the moneyers Ethelwald and Dud (see CEB 55, 56, 25). These similar stylistic features suggest this is the work of the same die cutter and links the coin to issues which are almost certainly from the London mint.

Sold for
£2,000