PREVIEW: GRAHAM COLLECTION OF BRITISH IRON AGE AND HAMMERED COINS 9 MARCH

An extremely rare Danelaw Penny, after Alfred the Great of Wessex’s London Monogram series, is the leading highlight of an outstanding collection of Saxon and later coinage in this auction.

Struck ælfr ed re+ around a diademed and draped bust, the reverse with the londonia monogram, this extremely fine and lightly toned coin carries an estimate of £10,000-12,000.

Other rarities from the collection start with a portrait-type penny of Coenwulf (796-821), King of Mercia, pitched at £5,000-6,000, and a diademed bust type penny of Edward the Elder (874-924) King of Wessex at £3,000-3,600.

An Offa (757-96), King of Mercia, penny struck by the moneyer Wihtraed in East Anglia, possibly Ipswich, and found in 1995 at Great Hockham in Norfolk, has an estimate of £4,000-5,000.

A penny for Æthelwulf (839-58), King of Wessex, carries the same guide, while a penny for Athelstan (924-39) with a crowned bust and reverse stamped grimpald mo lond, is expected to fetch £3,000-£4,000.

The 120-lot collection extends back in time to the Iron Age and forwards to the Commonwealth, culminating in a gold unite from 1651 estimated at £6,000-8,000.

Noonans’ Head of Coins, Tim Wilkes, said: “The breadth and depth of this collection provides an endlessly fascinating guide to the development of coinage from the earliest recorded times in British history almost to the Restoration.

“It is striking that while developing techniques of minting coins, along with engravers’ artistic skills, made leaps and bounds down the ages, the general concept of what a coin should look like, with the monarch’s portrait, dates and motto to the obverse, with the crests or coats of arms and often religious motto to the reverse, has remained remarkably consistent.

“This shows how important coinage has been politically, and especially in helping to underpin the power and authority of the monarchy.”