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Auction: 15004 - Ancient, British and Foreign Coins and Commemorative Medals
Lot: 516

Mercia, Offa (757-96), Penny, 0.94g, light coinage, c.779-92/3, portrait type, London, Lulla, undraped bust right with floral spray? in front, pellet below and trefoil behind, all within lozenge terminating in a cross at each angle, of/fa/re/x around with dispersed trefoils, rev. l/v/ll/a divided by four large rosettes, centrally a cross of petals impaled with a saltire cross of petals, all within a beaded inner circle (Blunt 70; Chick 66; N.314, c.f. Pl. IV, No 21; S.905), a field find with deposits and porosity, flan knock at 8 o'clock, however, a generally robust piece for Offa's coinage with no chips or cracks, very fine, this coin arguably the best preserved of the three recorded specimens for this type and a most interesting variant

provenance:

Found nr. Doddington, Kent, August 2014
Recorded with the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, EMC 2015.0049

The bust within lozenge obverse is a particularly unique variant within the reign of Offa. As with the variants with pelleted border around the bust it is thought that these borders had an apotropeic function. The cross terminals at the points of the lozenge add weight to this notion. Naismith records just two examples of the lozenge variant, both of which are in the British Museum collection. This is the third known and the only example available to commerce

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£2,000