411, Lot: 503. Estimate $300. Sold for $190. This amount does not include the buyer’s fee.

CAROLINGIANS. Lothaire I. As Emperor, 840-855. AR Denier (22.5mm, 1.64 g, 3h). Dorestat (Dorestad) mint. + LOTΛMV(retrograde S) IPERΛT (sic), cross pattée; pellets in quarters / + DORESTΛTVS MON, temple façade. Coupland, Lothar, pp. 173-5, and pl. 36, 27; Depeyrot 419 var. (obv. legend), but see illustration; Vandenbossche & Coupland 14; cf. M&G 526-7 (for type); MEC 1, 819. VF, toned, weakly struck obverse.

From the Simon Coupland Collection. Ex Schulman 30 (14 November 2003), lot 3093.

Dorestad is now no more than a small Dutch town, Wijk bij Duurstede, but in the ninth century it was the largest port in northern Europe. Trade, taxation, and the need to convert foreign silver into Carolingian coin meant that its mint was one of the most productive in the Frankish empire. Under Lothar I the reverse legend was consistently correct: DORESTATVS MON (short for moneta, mint) around a temple, but the obverse inscription was almost invariably very debased, as on this coin, reading IOTAMVS IPEPAT instead of Lotarius imperator. Since the engravers clearly could produce correct legends, and since we know that at this time the mint was run by Viking chieftains such as Rorik, who held the port in benefice from Lothar, it appears that the Scandinavians were deliberately deforming the emperor's name as a mark of disrespect. [S. Coupland]