Watch List notes:

ANGLO-SAXON, Transitional/Pre-Primary Phase. Circa 675-680. Pale AV Thrymsa – Shilling (12mm, 0.98 g, 12h). PADA series, Rigold PaIIB. Mint in Kent. Diademed bust right; TIIC downward to right / + mNVNTOT[...]m, cross set on two steps within double beaded border. EMC 2018.004 (this coin); Abramson 1.40; SCBI 63 (BM), 34 (same rev. die); SCBI 69 (Abramson), –; Metcalf p. 76; North –; SCBC 773A. Good VF, toned. The first example to appear at auction of this extremely rare type.


Found Birchington, Kent, 2017.

Of the enigmatic Pada series of thrymsas first classified by Stuart Rigold in his seminal 1960 study, type P IIB is by far the rarest. The obverse shares with type P IIA a bust based on a Constantinian prototype with a distinctive wreath made from a 'special cloven punch'. On the reverse however the Runic inscription PADA has been replaced with a Cross on steps, a common Byzantine motif first encountered in the Anglo-Saxon series on the fine gold Benitugo type Thrymsa. Only two other specimens are known of the P IIB type: one, found in a grave in Dover, was considered as possibly imitative by Michael Metcalf on grounds of style and metal content; and the example in the BM, acquired privately in 1926, with which our coin is die linked.