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Auction: 15005 - Ancient, British and Foreign Coins and Commemorative Medals
Lot: 392

Edward the Confessor (1042-1066), Halfpenny, 0.66g, Hammer cross type, Bury St Edmunds, Morcere, crowned bearded bust right, sceptre before, [+eadpa]rd re, rev. +morcre o[n eadmun], voided short cross with crescent terminals (Eaglen 5 (dies Aa), p.219; FEJ 126 - same dies; N.828; S.1182), a field find with areas of earth in situ, wave in flan, some scuffs and roughness, otherwise well-struck and with little wear, a tidy strike and good very fine, Bury a very rare mint in the Saxon series

Eaglen lists ten examples of the Hammer cross type at Bury with Morcere being the only known moneyer for the entire reign at the mint. It is noteworthy that a writ survives in which Edward the Confessor grants a moneyer at Bury to abbot Baldwin around the year 1065-1066. The writ states; King Edward sends greetings to Bishop Aethelmaer and Earl Gyrth and Toli and all my thegns in East Anglia. And I inform you that I have granted abbot Baldwine a moneyer within St Edmund's Bury, to have with the same freedom from restriction as I have my own anywhere in any of my boroughs where I have them more freely than anywhere else. may God be the friend of you all.'. It is the earliest extant record of a specific grant of coinage rights in England and was issued shortly after the current piece was struck at the Bury mint.

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Sold for
£350