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Auction: 18011 - The Williams Collection of Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman Coins - Part I
Lot: 44

(x) East Anglia, Aethelstan I (c.825-845), Penny, 1.40g, 3h, ship type, Eadgar, + ebblstan rex around ship, the initial cross is positioned at the mast head, rev. +ea+ / dga in two lines divided by x r between two plain bars (Naismith E29.4 this coin; N.449/2 and plate 6 no. 26 this coin; S.952A), very fine, unique

provenance:
Purchased from Spink, May 1992

One other Penny of Aethelstan with a ship on the obverse is recorded, see Marion Archibald, 'A ship-type of Athelstan I of East Anglia' in BNJ 52 (1982), pp. 34-40. The other example, discovered at West Harling in 1977, was folded when found, and broke into two pieces during the attempt to flatten it. It was subsequently aquired by the Castle Museum, Norwich.

'The obverse type of a ship is clearly derived from the similar vessels shown on the reverses of the rare Carolingian deniers of Charlemagne, 768-814 and Louis the Pious, 814-840, struck at Dorestadt (M&G 105 and 330) and Quentovic (M&G 121a and 351), the important trading posts at the mouths of the Rhine and Canche respectively. The issues of Charlemagne are less likely to have provided the model since the ships in the two known examples are consistent in being rudderless, with single ropes springing from fairly close to the base of the mast. The shape and fittings of the Aethelstan ship are most closely parallelled on coins of Louis the Pious from Dorestadt (e.g. M&G pl. XI, 330), which are in fact the only Carolingian deniers to have survived, and, presumably, to have been struck, in any numbers. It may be noted that the oars shown on the ultimate Roman prototype and reproduced on the Carolingian dies as oars and/or waves are lacking on this English example. The ship type was introduced some time during the last years of Charlemagne and although the issues of Louis the Pious cannot be dated precisely, they are securely attributed to early in his reign. At what stage the English copy appeared is difficult to assess. The ship type itself demonstrates the long interval that can divide a coin design from its prototype, but it is most probable that the English coin was produced while the Carolingian ship-type was still a significent presence in the circulating medium of the Frankish kingdom and its trading neighbours. This was during the earlier part of the reign of Louis the Pious before the ship type, with its predecessors and contemporaries, became heavily outnumbered in circulation by the large issues of two-line and temple types made during his middle and later years. Some examples did however survive long enough to be included in hoards buried into the early 840s. The date of the other group of imitations of the Carolingian ship type, produced in Scandinavia, is equally difficult to resolve; while some scholars would prefer a later date, Professor Malmer, who has made the most detailed recent study of the question, places their issue c. 825. Thus, although the date of the ship type must remain open, production earlier rather than later in Aethelstan's reign seems more probable.'

The reverse, with the moneyer's name Eadgar in two lines with the final letter r in the centre next to an x, and the use of miniscule for the letters d and g, is very reminiscent of the reverses, including those by the moneyer Eadgar, on the later coins of Coenwulf and Ceolwulf and also those of Beornwulf.

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Sold for
£48,000