ANGLO-SAXON, Kings of Kent. Anonymous. 822/3-4(?). AR Penny (21mm, 1.37 g, 12h). Canterbury mint; Swefheard, moneyer. Good VF.

Triton XXVII
Lot: 1232. Estimated: $ 7 500

British, Coin-in-Hand Video, Silver

Sold For $ 13 000. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

Go to Live

ANGLO-SAXON, Kings of Kent. Anonymous. 822/3-4(?). AR Penny (21mm, 1.37 g, 12h). Canterbury mint; Swefheard, moneyer. + SVVEFHERD MONETΛ, diademed bust right / + SVVEFHERD MONET, – –/ DRVR/ – –/ CITS in three lintes. Naismith C55.3a and p. 126, note 92 = BLS 11 (this coin); SCBI –; North 222/1; SCBC 878. Richly toned, slight die rust. Good VF. Extremely rare.

Form the Causeway Collection. Ex Archbishop Sharp (Morton & Eden 91, 7 December 2017), lot 22.

Earlier scholarship assigned this coinage to the 822/3-4 period, based on stylistic comparison with the royal coinage of King Coelwulf I of Mercia. However, Bradley Hopper recently challenged this chronology, questioning why there would be a break down in royal authority, as indicated by the removal of the royal name from the coinage. He suggests the answer lies in the contentious relationship between Archbishop Wulfred and King Coenwulf of Mercia, who had Wulfred suspended from 817-821, providing an alternate chronology for these anonymous issues. (Hopper, B. “The dating of Canterbury’s anonymous Archiepiscopal coinage,” in BNJ 92 [2022], p. 39-48)

Naismith notes that this particular coin is a mule of the anonymous type with a reverse normally used under Baldred. The die rusts suggests that Swefheard pressed an outdated obverse into service when his Baldred obverse die broke.

The final winners of all Triton XXVII lots will be determined at the live public sale that will be held on 9-10 January 2024.

Triton XXVII – Session Four – Lot 984–1341 will be held Wednesday afternoon, 10 January 2024 beginning at 2:00 PM ET.

Winning bids are subject to a 22.5% buyer's fee for bids placed on this website and 25% for all others.

We recognize that our users may have various Internet Browsers and Operating Systems. We like our visitors to have the best possible experience when using our bidding platform. However, we do recognize that it is impossible to develop applications that work identically, efficiently and effectively on all web browsers. The CNG bidding platform supports the latest stable major version and stable previous version of Chrome and Firefox.