Coenwulf of Mercia - Coinage

Coinage

The coinage of Coenwulf follows the broad silver penny format established under Offa and his contemporaries. His very first coins are very similar to the heavy coinage of Offa's last three years, and since the mints at Canterbury and in East Anglia were under the control of Eadbert Praen and Eadwald respectively, these earliest pennies must be the product of the London mint. Before 798 the new tribrach type appeared, with a design consisting of three radial lines meeting at the centre. The tribrach design was introduced initially at London alone but soon spread to Canterbury after it was reconquered from the rebels. It was not struck in East Anglia, but there are tribrach pennies in the name of Cuthred, sub-king of Kent. Around 805 a new portrait coinage was introduced to all three of the southern mints. After around 810 a range of reverse designs was introduced, though several were common to many or all of the moneyers. From this date there is also evidence of a new mint, at Rochester in Kent.

A recent development in the coinage of Coenwulf came with the discovery in 2001 of a gold coin bearing the name Coenwulf at Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, England, on a footpath beside the River Ivel. The 4.33 g (0.15 oz) mancus, worth about 30 silver pennies, is only the eighth known Anglo-Saxon gold coin dating to the mid-to-late Anglo-Saxon period. The coin's inscription, "DE VICO LVNDONIAE", indicates that it was minted in London. Initially sold to American collector Allan Davisson for £230,000 at an auction held by Spink auction house in October of that year, the British Government subsequently put in place an export ban in the hope of saving it for the British public. In February 2006 the coin was bought by the British Museum for £357,832 with the help of funding from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and The British Museum Friends making it the most expensive British coin purchased until then, though the price was exceeded the following July by the third-known example of a Double Leopard. It is now on display in the museum's money gallery.