Living in The Netherlands, sceatta's always fascinated me. Although the "regenboogschoteltje" or rainbow cup is probably the first coin minted in the Netherlands, sceatta's seemed an unatainable coin for some reason. Until last October, when I bought my first Continental Runetype, followed by two porcupine types. These super little coins sure are addictive. In the two weeks thereafter, I was able to snag four new ones, all found, and probably minted in The Netherlands. First, the ones I already had (I retook the photo's). You can see the bird on the obv gradually changing into the abstract 'porcupine' (not really sure this is actually the case, but I like to think so): Annonymous. Denomination: AR Sceatta (Series E, Primary ('Ashton Rowant') phase, plumed bird var. L (Type 6).), minted: Possibly Dorestad (The Netherlands); 695/700-710/5 AD Obv: “Plumed bird” right; pellet-in-annulet below beak Rev: Standard; pellet-in-annulet at center and in corners, separated by either double- or triple-pellet groups; lines in margin Provenance: Found in province of Zeeland (the Netherlands) 2018. Ex private collection; acq.: 11-2019 Annonymous. Denomination: AR Sceatta (Series E, sub-variety D), minted: Possibly Dorestad (The Netherlands); 720-740 AD Obv: Purcipine type, "V" near head, small cross at the left Rev: Square, with central annulet. Two "T" at each side, / \ below, with two pellets in between. Provenance: Ex private collection; acq.: 10-2019 Anonymous. Denomination: AR Sceatta (Series E, sub-variety K), minted: The Netherlands to Eastern Germany; 720-740 AD Obv: Porcupine type with four legs Rev: Beaded square with cross above and to the left. Central annulet with dot inside. Four beaded lines around in 'swatsika pattern'. Weight: 0.79g; Ø:1.3mm Provenance: Ex private collection; acq.: 10-2019 Annonymous. Denomination: AR Sceatta (Series D, type 2c, sub-variety 3c), minted: Possibly England; 695-715 AD Obv: Abstract head Rev: Central cross with four pellets around, below annulet, above cross patté, runic letters around. Provenance: Ex private collection; acq.: 09-2019 Now the new ones: Annonymous. Denomination: AR Sceatta (Series E, Primary ('Ashton Rowant') phase, plumed bird var. K (Type 6)), minted: Probably Dorestad, Frisia (the Netherlands); 695/700-710/5 Obv: Plumed bird’ right; cross pommée to right and below Rev: Standard with central pellet-in-annulet, four bars, and two trefoils; crosses at sides, dots around Catalogue: Abramson 87.30; OdV&K 297-8; SCBI 63 (BM), 303-6; North 49; SCBC 789 Provenance: Ex private collection; acq.: 11-2019 This one had a layer of horn silver on it, which I removed for the most part using (of course) sodium thiosulphate. This is probably a continental runictype, but I haven't quite pinpointed it. Suggestions are welcome The last one is broken and (thus) already resold to another collector. It is a very nice one though: ANGLO-SAXON, Continental Sceattas. Circa 695/700-710/5. AR Sceatt (12mm, 1.14 g). Series E, Primary ('Ashton Rowant') phase, stepped cross var. (Type 53). Mint in Frisia (Dorestad). 'Porcupine' with snout right; annulet, pellet, and bar below / 'Stepped' cross, pellet-in-annulet at center; zig-zag line in margin. Abramson 91.10; SCBI 63 (BM), 419; North 150; SCBC 785. Post your sceatta's, dark early Medieval coins, or anything you deem relevant!
Lovely coins! Did you find them from a seller online? I’ve been looking to add some of these to my collection
... they call it the dark age for a reason But jokes aside: these sceatta's are very dark, making them difficult to photograph. They are from four different sellers. Sceatta's are somewhat scarce, but in the Netherlands metal detecting is allowed. So every now and then a few pop up.
Awesome acquisitions! See, I knew you’d specialise in these. They remain extremely fascinating and I am looking forward to seeing your future acquisitions. And even if that stepped cross is broken, it is still an amazing coin. The one you hadn’t identified is a Class D, type 8. Quite an enigmatic type, since it mules the reverse of a class E ‘porcupine’ sceatta with the reverse of class D (continental runetype). Although they were struck in quite significant numbers and since (to the best of my knowledge) no die link has ever been found to a true Class D or E coin, they do not fit the traditional definition of a mule. These are primarily found in England, but the current hypothesis is that were struck in the Netherlands, either in Frisia or the Domburg area (the latter of which was quite a large port in the Anglo-Frisian trade, where quite a few sceattas of all types have been found). Be careful when sources attribute any type of sceatta to Dorestad by the way; there is often fairly little evidence for this. As soon as the distribution pattern shows a focus on the centre or south of the Netherlands, they are immediately attributed to Dorestad. The same goes for those found in the north of the Netherlands and the northwest of Germany; these are immediately attributed to Wijnaldum. We know that these would indeed have been the larger settlements in this period, and they might very well have been struck there, but there is little direct evidence to support this. There are definitely some series of Sceattas that were struck in Dorestad and Domburg, but from the entire dataset we can however also deduce that it is likely that there are many different ‘local’ mints, so attributing the entire series to just a handful of big emporia is somewhat problematic. Date-wise they belong to the primary phase of continental ‘imitations’ and are quite possibly the earliest specimens of class D. And a small correction (just nit-picking here ): your second plumed bird is actually not variety K (lean bird, inverted of triangle of pellets ), but variety J (slightly more ‘plump’ bird, regular triangle of pellets). The difference is only minor and makes no real impact on the ID! I’ve shown mine before in your previous Sceatta-related topic, but I’ll take any excuse to show them again: This is the same Class D, type 8 as your unidentified one (although from a vastly different pair of dies). The last one is another lovely ‘porcupine’!
GREAT coins, @Roerbakmix ... or Mr Stir-Fry! The Sceatta remind me of a lot of the cool Celtic coins too! Celtic Britain Iceni Boudicca 61 CE 1.03g Celt Hd r Celtic horse galloping Seaby 434 Scarce Personally, I think they were playing video games WAY before their times!!!
