Coins, Tokens and Historical Medals

Early Anglo-Saxon Period, Gold Shilling or Thrymsa, Post-Crondall period c. 650-70, Crispus type, helmeted and cuirassed bust right, cbispvo cob caes, rev. x x in lower angles of annuleted cross, within triple beaded border, circumscript legend around reading raseac in inverted latin script and delaiona in runes, 1.30g/8h (SCBI Abramson 8, same obv. die; SCBI BM 21, same rev. die; MEC 8, 12; N 18; S 764). A few light surface marks, otherwise about extremely fine, the obverse centrally struck from a fresh sharp die of impressive artistic quality, extremely rare £8,000-£10,000

Provenance: Found at Haslingfield (Cambridgeshire), 2022; EMC 2022.0006.

Superior to the both the Abramson and Fitzwilliam specimens, this is only the ninth example of this extremely rare type to be recorded with the Corpus of Early Medieval Coins (EMC). The British and Fitzwilliam Museums each only have a single example within their collections, while Metcalf’s corpus of the Ashmolean Museum collection lists no example present. Owing to the broad flan used to strike this coin the runic inscription is clearly readable from right to left. Marion Archibald proposed that delaiona was a mint signature (of London), however in the face of contradictory find-spot evidence it may be preferable to interpret this as a personal name