DetectingWales.com

hi
I'm a coin collector and not so long time ago I purchased saxon penny. I'm not specialist in hammered coins. Just want to make sure that this coin is genuine.

Any information about the coin are welcome. Looks like London mint.

(http://i1365.photobucket.com/albums/r742/bolizdor/2_zpsubltylzv.jpg) (http://s1365.photobucket.com/user/bolizdor/media/2_zpsubltylzv.jpg.html)

(http://i1365.photobucket.com/albums/r742/bolizdor/1_zps7wlobptz.jpg) (http://s1365.photobucket.com/user/bolizdor/media/1_zps7wlobptz.jpg.html)

Well who knows? There was one that sold recently on CNG for $29,000, Mike Vosper has recently sold one with cracks for £2500 and there's part of one for sale on Timeline for £400+. St James' has one for £15k.

There are also Pewter replicas.

What you have should be:-

Raven Penny, c20mm, c1.3g, c939-941, +AN.LAF CVNVNGS. Raven with wings displayed, hd. l./+, +ADELFERD MINETR, Aethelferd.
Struck at York.

I'd start by getting someone to do a silver test on the coin.

Very interesting coin if genuine.

But what made you purchase an apparently very rare coin if you knew nothing about it?

As already said by probono, this coin does not appear to match the extant known examples.

The reverse appears to have the legend + DENEILD MONE or something similar.

If correct, DENEILD would be the name of the moneyer. The coin has nothing to do with London.

There was a moneyer named Deinolt who struck the St Eadmund memorial coinage some 30-40 years earlier, which seems to be the closest I can find.

I would suggest submitting the coin to the Fitzwilliam Museum for an opinion.

I know that at Jorvik you can strike some pennies - the reverse strike on this one seems almost as if it has been struck multiple times - certanily the example I have was struck more than once...... (note that mine is a different type of viking coin)

I'm on my holiday at the moment and I'm unable to send that coin to museum for verification, but I will do that when I'm back. I found few examples on google but not with deneild moneyer

Where did you get it from Pablo? was it a reputable dealer.

The same type coin shown in photo sold in May but a unrecorded moneyer.

iam not convinced the lettering looks odd on the triple strike side, maybe its just me but if its genuine good luck :)

I bought that coin on ebay from 40+ year old lady. She had only few fedbacks and her ebay account is only few months old - suspicious I know, but  I've made a few good deals with people which had only few feedbacks. I paid £600 for that coin on buy now price listed only for few minutes. I took my chance. Well if it's not genuine I will send it back as item not as described :)

I admit that triple strike look odd and that cross is little to large if you compare other simillar coins.

You may think I'm being harsh, but:

You bought this from an eBay seller whose feedback is 3 (all as a buyer of clothing items), who has never sold anything else and whose only other item listed is a pair of shoes!

The item was listed as "anglo saxon coins", with the description, "Saxon coin very rare because of the ravon" (sic).

In my opinion, If it's a fake you deserve to lose your money!

If it's genuine you will have done very well of course, but that's the gamble you take on listings like this.

doc why do you think I should loose my money? coin is described as a saxon penny if it's not saxon then it's not as described.  That is ebay policy I'm not doing anything wrong.

I'm not suggesting you're doing anything wrong, but you may be lucky to get your money back.

I do hope it's genuine, as it appears to have been previously unrecorded.

The coin doesn't look double struck to me, all the legends are perfectly clear Peter read them fine, if a coin like that has had four hits of the hammer id expect the legends to be a bit of a mess with ghosting from each strike, plus a coin die hasn't even got round edges like that, has someone tried to create the affect of a double strike ???

W0!WO!WO!please!!!remember!!
IF A DEAL SEEMS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE!!!
                               THEN
VERY OFTEN IT IS!!! ??? :'(

Just seen the listing , it was only a few days ago and you would have no trouble getting a refund as long as you paid by paypal as if not genuine would be not as described ;)

Interestingly enough I saw that Spink recently sold one for £11k - this was different from this one.

Peter - I think that the first letter of Pablo's coin has a 'TH' - the D with a line through it. Most of the coins I've seen have also had Moniter or Monet, rather than just Mone at the end. I also don't like the punch used for the obverse cross (raven side) or the wedges used on the reverse - the obverse one looks like it was meant to be made from 4 wedges and then punched separately onto the die - whilst that isn't necessarily indicative of a wrong un, none of the ones I have found so far (and indeed I can remember that on any of the other anglo saxon / Danish type coins that I've seen) have it.

The other thing is to do with style - it's been said in other places that to truly make an anglo saxon / Danish / Viking coin you have to be anglo saxon / Danish / Viking - immersed in the culture with no other influences - sadly we live in our age and anyone trying to copy an earlier artefact will almost always show some trace of their time in whatever they are doing - it's hard to pin down, but this one almost looks as if it is trying a bit too hard - but of course that's only my opinion.

it's possible that this coin is forgery, but why someone used uknown moneyer name? or why it's triple striked? and why there are no other simillar coins out there? if it's a copy coin than there should be at least few known examples.

Quite a lot of hand struck forgeries are 'unique' - and given what you paid for the coin, I'm sure even striking one would more than pay for the effort to create it.

Sometimes forgers use techniques such as bad multiple strikes so that people say - 'this can't be a forgery, they would want to make it perfect' - but there's probably a greater number of people who would jump at the chance of a coin that should be >£10k for £600 than a collector willing to shell out £10k+ (although there are plenty of forgeries at that level too).

I'm not saying that yours is of course, just pointing out why fakes are often unique, not struck well - and of course by making up the name of a moneyer there are no other examples to compare the style to - and any little differences can be put down to the 'unique' styling of the otherwise unknown moneyer.