Anglo-Saxon

The Two-Line Type of Aethelstan, a provisional summary – Hugh Pagan

The initial coinage struck in the reign of King Aethelstan (924-939) was of Two-Line type, in which the reverse design carries the name of a moneyer set out in two lines without any accompanying indication of the location where the coin was struck. Arguments based on the appearance of the same moneyers’ names on mint-signed coins struck later in Aethelstan’s reign, coupled with stylistic criteria, enable the moneyers concerned to be associated either with specific cities or boroughs such as London, Winchester, Canterbury, Chester, Shrewsbury, and Oxford, or with particular regional areas, and the present note sets out the current state of knowledge as to where individual moneyers involved in striking the main series of coins of this type might have been operating.

The ‘Sizewell C’ or ‘Near Leiston’ hoard: a summary – Alex Bliss, Richard Ambrose, Dr Adrian Marsden and Hugh Pagan

Excavation by Oxford Cotswold Archaeology near Leiston (Suffolk) in April 2023 resulted in the discovery of a small package manufactured from lead sheet. This had been buried at the junction of two field boundary ditches. Unwrapping of this material revealed that it enclosed a coin hoard of 321 coins buried in the early 1040’s, comprising 319 pennies and 2 cut halfpennies. The coins correspond to the reigns of Harold I, Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor. This note provides an initial summary record of the find.

An Analysis of Strike Error Coins – Lyle Curtis Molina

The purpose of this research note is to provide some guidance and structure for beginning numismatists of British hammered coinage who find an interest with some form of striking error within the Anglo-Saxon and Noman series.  The scope of this research note is to: 1) provide examples of strike errors to illustrate aspects to keep an eye out for when examining a coin; 2) provide a framework to help analyse strike errors; and 3) demonstrate practical application of this framework.

The Langford, Bedfordshire, Hoard 2016, and the Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, Hoard 1892 – Hugh Pagan

This records two very similar hoards of Anglo-Saxon coins containing coins of Alfred of Wessex and of Archbishop Plegmund of Canterbury, one found at Langford, Bedfordshire, in 2016, and the other at Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, in 1892, and discusses the evidence for their dates of deposit. The content of the Langford hoard has not as yet been formally published, and the summary listing of it offered here will be helpful for the wider numismatic community.

Two (or Three?) Identically Pierced Coins of Edward the Confessor’s Sovereign/Eagles type- Hugh Pagan

                     This note argues that a pierced coin in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, of Edward the Confessor’s Sovereign/Eagles type, Oxford, moneyer Beorhtweald, SCBI 2, 1105, with a secure provenance going back to 1783, is, remarkably, a cast taken in the eighteenth century from a coin of the same type, mint and moneyer in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, SCBI 9, 918, of which the recorded provenance only goes back to 1934.