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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Nap, post: 2713684, member: 73099&quot;]<img src="http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o582/napoleoniii/pada-thrymsa-1.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p>Anglo-Saxon pale gold thrymsa, ca. 655-675</p><p>S.770, Rigold PIIIb</p><p>Likely Kentish transitional pale gold thrymsa of the mid-late 7th century. Debasement of gold coinage took place during the production of several gold shillings or &quot;thrymsas&quot;, culminating in a coinage that was mostly silver. There&#039;s still a touch of gold in this one. These thrymsas predate the sceatta coinage.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o582/napoleoniii/series-j-1.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p>Sceatta, ca. 710-725</p><p>Probably Northumbrian, possibly from York</p><p>S.802D, Series J, type 36</p><p><br /></p><p>Understood to be Northumbrian, this coin, a sceatta, was likely made in York, ca. 710-725, although it did not name any rulers.&nbsp; Possibly an uninscribed issue sandwiched between the literate inscribed coins in the names of Kings Aldfrith (685-704) and Eadberht (737-758), not sure if it&#039;s a royal coinage.&nbsp; The obverse features a face with a cross, a common motif on sceattas as well as Merovingian deniers.&nbsp; The reverse are two birds, one walking and the other flying.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><img src="http://i1149.photobucket.com/albums/o582/napoleoniii/st-peter-1.jpg" class="bbCodeImage wysiwygImage" alt="" unselectable="on" /> </p><p><br /></p><p>Viking St. Peter penny, ca. 910-920</p><p>Probably from York</p><p>One-line variety</p><p>S.1006 (var.)</p><p><br /></p><p>A Viking penny in the name of St. Peter, patron saint of the city of York.</p><p>Viking coinage in York began at around the start of the 10th century with a coinage in the names of &#039;Cnut&#039; (a different Cnut than the later king of England) and &#039;Siefred&#039;, a probably short-lived coinage but one which survives in great numbers due to the Cuerdale hoard. Subsequently, an anonymous coinage in the name of St. Peter follows, of which this coin is probably a late type. </p><p>After the St. Peter coinage there was an inscribed coinage in the names of Regnald and Sihtric Caech, Hiberno-Norse kings from Ireland who conquered Northumbria. A subsequent anonymous second coinage in 920s in the name of St. Peter features a sword (probably the Sword of Carlus, a 9th century Irish Viking hero), and Thor&#039;s hammer. Viking coinage continued, mostly in the name of the kings of York, until the mid 10th century, culminating with Eric Bloodaxe, after which king Eadred of England brought Northumbria into the English fold.</p><p>All Viking coinage from York is rare, but the Cnut, Siefred, and St. Peter coinages are the most common, due to their survival in several large hoards.</p><p>This a variant of the &quot;swordless&quot; St. Peter coinage, with a blundered version of &quot;Sancti Petri&quot; in one line, instead of the usual two lines. The one-line St. Peter coins make up a subset of the earlier swordless type. There are only a handful known, and they all feature symbols, including the tree, the key (St. Peter&#039;s key to heaven), a candelabra, a star or propeller, and a large cross.</p><p>The most detailed sources on the coinage are &quot;Chronology of the St. Peter Coinage&quot; by Stewart and Lyon, and &quot;The Swordless St Peter Coinage of York&quot; by Gooch. Both of these sources believe the one-line type is among the latest of the St. Peter &quot;swordless&quot; coinage. Of the few known specimens, most have been found in York, but one was found in Geashill, Ireland; one found in Birka, Sweden; and my example was found in Scarning, East Anglia. (Mine happens to be from the same dies as the Geashill example, for what it&#039;s worth). The wide distribution of a type of which probably only around a dozen are known suggests the coinage was not meant to be a small insular production and probably was produced in good numbers, but just has not survived. It was suggested somewhere that the one-line type might be an unofficial imitation, but I cannot accept this since several of these coins are from hoards which include other &quot;official&quot; coins of St. Peter, as well as coins of Regnald I which directly followed this type. I would not be surprised if these coins were made under the auspices of Regnald, rather than before it.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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