Ancient, British and World Coins, Historical Medals and Banknotes

Kings of Mercia, Offa (757-96), Penny, Post-Reform issue, Non Portrait type, small flan, Mangod(?), OFRM in angles of plain cross, bar above and single pellet at other extremities, trefoil of pellets by R, reverse MANG in two lines divided by a row of pellets truncating in two crosses pattée, further groups of three pellets around, 1.29gm (CEB –; N. –; cf. S 904). Extremely fine and of the highest rarity, a new type for the reign of Offa and the moneyer previously unknown for this king (£2000-3000)

Vendor states: “Found in the Peterborough area in the mid-1970s.”

The moneyer’s signature on the coin would appear to suggest the name Mangod (or Mangold), a name previously unknown on any coins of Offa. It is possible that the signature represents an abbreviated form of a compound name: the final letter could be a reversed D rather than a G.

The weight of the present coin places it firmly among the ranks of Offa’s heavy coinage pieces. Its plain cross obverse type, most closely represented on other surviving issues of Offa by the early light coinage pennies of Eahlmund (CEB 8 [= BMC 32]; N. 259) and Eoba (CEB 10; N. 260), strongly suggests an issue of a Kentish mint, probably Canterbury. However, the find area, on the fringes of East Anglia, might tempt an attribution to an East Anglian mint. Several recent finds of Offa’s coins from East Anglia were detailed by Derek Chick (SNC July 1989, p.192), but this piece is not among them.
See back cover illustration.