REVIEW: COINS, HISTORICAL MEDALS & ANTIQUITIES AUCTION 13 & 14 JULY

Sometimes it is the apparently more mundane finds that can have an impact on history and knowledge. Such was the case in the discovery of a 1,200-year-old penny found near Marden in Herefordshire in February 2022.

Minted for Offa, (757-96) King of Mercia, the reverse is clearly stamped for the moneyer Babba, about whom little is known except that he had clear associations with Canterbury.

Aside from working under the Mercian kings Offa and Coenwulf, Babba also signed coins for two independent Kentish kings: Ecgberht II and Eadbehrt Præn.

This coin, however, proved a surprise because it was struck from dies very close in style and design to those employed by the London-based moneyer Pendred.

While most dies used by Canterbury moneyers were cut locally, minting equipment was, on occasion, supplied from London. Two of Canterbury’s more prolific moneyers, Eoba and Ealred, both regularly received London portrait dies of high artistic quality. Although this arrangement was confined to the start of Offa’s light coinage, and appears to have been intermittent, it probably reflects the extraordinary position that these men held within the Canterbury ‘mint’.

Despite this connection between the two cities, Babba never reached the levels of prominence or productivity achieved by his more favoured colleagues, and thus is unlikely to have been selected for preferential treatment. In addition, until the discovery of this coin, he was known exclusively from non-portrait pennies.

Of further interest is the reverse die used to strike this coin, which appears to have been modified to accommodate the moneyer’s name (evident most clearly in the placement of the additional ‘A’ over the cross end terminating at 3 o’clock).

So how did he come to use a set of dies that apparently originated from London?

“It would seem that neither of these dies was originally intended for use by Babba, and that they came into his employment second hand. How and why this came to be remain unfortunately obscure,” says Noonans Head of Coins, Tim Wilkes. “Regardless, this new and extraordinary penny of Babba represents an important new piece of evidence for informing our understanding of the relationship between moneyers, mint-towns and engravers during the late eighth century.”

A unique contribution to coin scholarship, then, Noonans had estimated it at £3,000-4,000 in their 13 & 14 July Coins, Historical Medals & Antiquities auction. Such was the interest that it sold for a hammer price of £6,500.