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Auction: 23004 - Ancient and British Coins - Featuring the 'White Rose' Collection
Lot: 389

Anglo-Frisian, temp. Louis the Pious (c. 814-840), AV Solidus, c. 816-818, Scandinavian Settler Mint in Southern England [?], PIVVDOV◇IIMVS (this legend based on the prototype: DN LVDOVICVS IMP AVG), crude laureate and draped bust right, with finely incised hair and imposing portrait features, rev. MVNVS DIVIIVM (this legend based on the prototype: MVNVS DIVINUM), crucifix cross pattée in 'suspended wreath', 4.31g [66.5grns], 7h [?] (EMC 2020.0384 this coin; Grierson, cf. Type XIV; MEC I, nos 752-756; cf. Prou 1075 -; Coupland [2016], pp. 265-266), an extraction scuff along chin and tip of nose resulting in an overt flan bend and stress marking to corresponding area of reverse, otherwise of competent and presumably early workmanship, of sound and residually lustrous buttery-gold fabric, strictly very fine, but extremely rare with about two-dozen examples recorded

Provenance

~ Found at Castle Eaton (Wilts), 2020 ~

Recorded with the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridgeshire), ref. EMC 2020.0384




An extract from: 'The Watlington Hoard: Coinage, Kings and the Viking Great Army in Oxfordshire, AD875-880' (John Naylor and Eleanor Standley, 2020), pp. 162 - ....[and] a base metal forgery
of a gold solidus imitating an issue of Louis the Pious (814–40) was discovered at Exe Bridge (Rippon 2021: 226). Generally considered to have been struck in Frisia, and Coupland (2016: 265–66) has recently argued that they were produced by Scandinavians who had settled in the area rather than by the Frisians themselves and that their distribution in the Low Countries, France and Britain reflects Viking activity; other examples of these coins have been found in the south-west region near Salisbury PAS WILT-A50F43) and from Castle Eaton (both Wiltshire; EMC 2020.0384)."


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Estimate
£3,000 to £4,000

Starting price
£2500