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kardonivm caes

Viking/Anglo-Saxon coin attribution

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It should be round

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What weight? It doesn't look cast, and looks old, though?

Would it be possible they may have used plate?

Where did it come from?

Are the legends right, Rob?

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To expand, it appears that the coin attempts to imitate an Ethelred II long cross penny, but the legends are completely wrong. An example of a long cross penny is below.

Maybe there is a Viking imitation of this issue, but those are also round. Weight?

post-381-0-39146600-1436022168_thumb.jpg

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This coin just popped up on ukrainian online auction yesterday.

I 'm trying to contact seller for more data, but he is not replying for now. The guy looks like ordinary treasure hunter, according to his lots living in Chernigiv (near viking's established Kievan Rus capital). It is quite rare, but possible to see in Ukraine, Aethelred pennies or else, but with this coin I'm just out of any ideas. I checked wildwinds, nothing square there, but some viking's rulers in England also has similar coin design, that is why I came here. Our community out of ideas.

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There are a lot of modern copies, for example, the William I PAXS penny posted a few minutes before your thread. If it looks odd, it probably is. Whilst somebody could possibly unearth a rarity, eastern europe (or ebay) and a potentially valuable type are usually accompanied by a large red flag. A lot of Roman copies emanate from eastern europe, so a Viking copy doesn't require a great leap of faith.

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I'll try to gather more information about the coin and come back.

Place is not some forgery paradise like ebay, more like this site - collectors forum combined with auction, where most of the lots are first hand sales going via initial discussion with local experts on forum. Events where forgery slip through the nets and being actualy sold are extremely rare. Also it is make very little sense for man with such good skills to make english penny imitation on square peace of metal, hole it and try to sell in Ukraine, where he can find 1-2 collectors of such things. Kievan Rus forgeries would be way more profitable with small coin's fragments start from 50$.

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Looks fine to me contrary to what others have stated.

There are a variety of Viking issues which are square and the museum collections in Denmark, Norway and Sweden are testament to this. The Sigtuna issues are just one such example of a square flan imitating the English Longcross type. I attach my photo of a similar example:

DSCF4339-1.jpg

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Looks fine to me contrary to what others have stated.

There are a variety of Viking issues which are square and the museum collections in Denmark, Norway and Sweden are testament to this. The Sigtuna issues are just one such example of a square flan imitating the English Longcross type. I attach my photo of a similar example:

Thank you for valuable input, I'll try to dig in this direction.

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Ok, I'm happy to stand corrected, so do we have a die link for it?

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Do you mean an ACTUAL die, Rob, or something just bearing the legend?

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OK, so from information available in internet, not so much was found. First of all auctions. I found only 3 coins and 1 fragments of klippe coin all belongs to Olaf Skötkonung, he is actually first king who minted coins in Sweden. The legends are different, no similar DIE there:

http://www.coinarchives.com/w/lotviewer.php?LotID=2034713&AucID=1913&Lot=699&Val=3fe77167ac8610239508098eb5c3a6e3

http://www.acsearch.info/search.html?term=sigtuna+klippe&category=1-2&en=1&de=1&fr=1&it=1&es=1&ot=1&images=1&currency=usd&order=0&company=

Nice old articles only to find out that Cnud was making danish coins using Ethelred name, No klippe, no similar legens, as far I can see.

http://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ/pdfs/1960_BNJ_30_23.pdf

http://www.britnumsoc.org/publications/Digital%20BNJ/pdfs/1915_BNJ_11_4.pdf

And some swedish blog which I read with google translate, misusing different dies together, die mistakes where CNVT describing himself as CVNT. Still no matches.

http://myntbloggen.se/2013/09/03/anund-jakob-ca-1022-1050/

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die mistakes where CNVT describing himself as CVNT.

Are we sure it's a mistake? :ph34r:

I find coins like this very interesting. I've done work on secondary treatment of coins found in Viking Age Scandinavia and it's clear that many were withdrawn from the economic sphere - whether German coins with original suspension loop present or English coins crudely folded and avoiding much pecking.

4v2ts3.jpg

2hggrqo.jpg

Whereas the example you post is an intriguing one. Looks to have just one peckmark and was found a way out of the Viking homelands - couple these with the evidence for suspension and it looks as if it's an example of jewellery taken away by a Rus trader from somewhere closer to Sweden. I've seen many examples like this crop up from Estonia in recent years.

But back to the identity of the coin itself, more than 50% of Scandinavian/Baltic imitations of Aethelred II's Longcross are minted on square flans with many having die links to legible issues minted in Sigtuna. A possible explanation for the high prevalence of square flans is that these were meant purely for payments for a new taxation system and so were hastily produced having never had the intention of circulating as currency.

If you can get your hands on some of Brita Malmer's references I'm confident you'll find something similar if not a die link/pattern to her examples. Brita sadly passed away a couple of years ago but I am in touch with another numismatist who has her files and is continuing with her research so let me know if you want me to send him an email.

Have you purchased this?

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The seller asking unreasonable price, around 1100 USD, no one will bid it. Usually those guys calming down and reducing price, it will take couple of weeks.

Not so good deal for the unidentified coin which could turn out as ordinary low grade scrap.

The area where he found the coin is famous for many viking's mounds related to conquest and state establishing, so could be the coin. That is why I'm so intrested. No any evidence of first konungs coinage found yet and almost no historical data available.

Unfortunatelly I concentrated on roman empire coins and don't have any connection with people who related to scandinavian/saxon coins or access to related studies. I would appreciate if you can give some references.

Since it was on the way Scandinavia - Byzantium/Scandinavia - Caspian Sea river trade routs almost any european or asian coin can be found in the area and chances are low.

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