Watch List notes:

*Eadmund (939-46), Floral Type penny, specially-struck on an oversized and overweight flan, having the reverse gilt, obverse worked and the edges folded in order to fix the coin onto an ornament or into a mount for use in jewellery; obv., small cross, + eadmvnd rex, rev., trefoil-headed flower between leaf sprays, bar with annulets at groundline, moneyer's name eadvvear and a sideways reversed S ornament below, 1.84g (cf. N. 694 and SCBI 34, 466-7 for obverse (and from the same, or from a very similar, obverse die as SCBI 34, 467 = SCL pl. 25, 278); cf. N.703 and SCBI 34, 47 for comparable reverse type), the obverse (which has clearly never been gilded) with evidence of flattening or tooling from the process of mounting and about very fine, reverse with very strong original gilding, extremely fine, now slightly bent but otherwise undamaged, retaining slight surface deposit from excavation, of the highest rarity. The present coin clearly resembles Blunt, Stewart & Lyon's unique 'Exceptional Type a' (Coinage in Tenth-Century England, p. 202 and pl. 25, 278, also illustrated on the book's dustjacket), itself a close copy of Edward the Elder's Floral Type which, the authors suggest, may have been struck by the Gloucester moneyer Ædelmod. The newly-discovered piece now offered, while obviously of comparable style, has close affinities also with Eadmund's 'Horizontal Rosette' variants of Mercian origin, classified by B., S. & L. as HM var d and e. Only two moneyers are known for these very rare coins - Eofermund (who had struck coins at Shrewsbury for Athelstan) and Eadweard (see B., S. & L., p. 121). The distinctive feature is the 'sideways reversed S' symbol (or, perhaps, mintmark) replacing the more usual rosette device, and it is unequivocally present both on Eadweard's Two-Line pennies and on this previously unknown Floral issue. Discovered in late 2014 near Bishop Waltham, Hampshire.

Estimate: £4,000 - 6000