PREVIEW: BRITISH COINS & TOKENS 19 & 20 SEPTEMBER

The reign of Harold Godwinson lasted just 282 days before he was struck down at the Battle of Hastings, and England left the Anglo-Saxon age behind to begin a 1,000-year monarchy that survives today.

The shortness of the reign renders coinage associated with it rare compared other periods; rarer still are coins of Harold struck in Hastings itself. Only 11 are known and it has been 37 years since one was offered on the market until this sale.

Coin production at Hastings is first recorded in Æthelstan’s Grately code (c.926-30). This wide-ranging administrative document stipulated (amongst other things) the number of moneyers who were to be employed at each mint-place; Hastings was afforded one moneyer. It is quite surprising, then, that no coins of Æthelstan, or his immediate successors, can be attributed to the town.

Instead, Hastings is first named on Æthelred II’s second hand type, some sixty years later. Thereafter, the mint appears to have been fairly active, producing a steady flow of coinage down to The Anarchy in the mid twelfth century. The exception to this rule is found within the reign of Harold II. At this point, output appears to have been greatly reduced.

Pagan, in his survey of Harold II’s coinage, notes only 8 specimens of Hastings, compared to 15, 41 and 30 at the nearby Sussex mints of Chichester, Lewes and Steyning respectively. This pattern is also borne out by the recent Chew Valley hoard: of the 1,238 coins of Harold II contained within, only 3 carry a Hastings mint signature. This compares to 244 from Chichester, 22 from Lewes, and 97 from Steyning.

Hastings, then, is demonstrably an extremely rare mint in this type. Not since the Norweb sale in 1986 (Part III, lot 829) has a penny of Harold Godwinson struck at Hastings been offered for sale on the open market, making this a generational opportunity to acquire an iconic and evocative coin; it is no small benefit that the penny in question also happens to be beautifully preserved, and comes with a distinguished provenance.

The Harold II (1066) Penny of Hastings is of the PAX type and struck by the moneyer Dunning. Extremely fine, toned and with an impressive provenance to the collections of E.J. Shepherd, H. Montagu and H. Symonds, it is estimated at £6,000-8,000.