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Auction: 14007 - Ancient, British and Foreign Coins and Commemorative Medals
Lot: 527

Stephen (1135-54), Penny, 1.24g, 'Watford' type (BMC 1), Rye, Rawulf, crowned bust right, sceptre before, no inner circle, [st]iefne: rev. [+r]avlf:on:[r]ie[e], cross moline, a fleur in each angle (Allen BNJ 2012, p.114; Mack unlisted as a coin of Type I; N.873; S.1278), struck on a small flan, deep tone, weakness behind bust corresponding on reverse, otherwise very fine for Stephen's first type, Rye an extremely rare single-moneyer mint of the Anarchy

provenance
Found near Chart Sutton, Kent, 2012
Recorded with the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, EMC 2012.0291

Rye was first alluded to as a possible mint under Stephen by W.J. Andrew in SNC November-December 1914. In Andrew's subsequent BNJ 1929-30 (Vol.XX) article a specimen of BMC Type I was alluded to but not illustrated or provenanced. A corpus of the mint was later published in BNJ 1955-57 by the renowned Sussex mint collector Horace King. At this time just seven specimens were known, all of which were of BMC Type II. In the following decade R.P. Mack's seminal work on the Anarchy, BNJ 1966 (Vol.XXXV), listed a BMC Type I/II mule but no Type I for Rye. It was subsequently recognized by Robert Seaman in SNC January 1977 'The Rye Mint' that an example of BMC I did in fact exist having been in the Norwich Castle Museum collection since c.1830 misattributed as Castle Rising, cf SCBI 26 Museums in East Anglia p.110 & no.1457. Seaman himself listed this piece as well as a cut half of the type, ex Wells collection, bringing the known specimens of Rye BMC I to two. It has not been possible to trace another specimen on the SCBI/EMC databases and, therefore, it would be prudent to say there are fewer than five BMC I Rye mint coins known and even fewer available to commerce.

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Sold for
£1,700