Noonans Mayfair
Auction 351 3 Mar 2026
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Early Medieval English Coins from the Collection of William MacKay
Early Anglo-Saxon Period, Shilling, Crispus Type, Post-Crondall Phase, struck c. 650-60 in East Anglia, helmeted and cuirassed bust right: crispvs dob ches around, rev. annuleted cross, flanked by crosses at base, within double beaded border, +cesiar ᛞᛖᛋᚨᛁᚨᚾᚨ [de saiana] around, 1.28g/12h (SCBI Abramson 8 = Abramson ASGC 720.2, this coin; N 18; S 764). Good very fine, slight die rust on obverse, otherwise with delightful buttery tone over excellent surfaces, very rare thus £7,000-£9,000
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Provenance: SNC August 2007 (HS3054); T. Abramson Collection, Part I, Spink Auction, 18 March 2021, lot 21
This coin illustrated in the Standard Catalogue of British Coins
The gold Shillings or Thrymsas of the seventh century are perhaps the most enigmatic of all English coins; for they were produced during Britain's heroic age, a period immortalised in the words of our great Venerable Historian. It is a great shame that they are exasperatingly hard to attribute with any certainty. Numerous coins carry legends but these are often blundered or confused beyond the point of recognition. A few belonging to the earliest phases of the gold coinage have been intelligibly interpreted. These include the coins of King Eadbald of Kent, bishop Paulinus of York and a few mint-signed pieces of Canterbury and York.
In discussing the late, Post-Crondall, gold Shillings, Rory Naismith notes that the Crispus type is 'the only one with a meaningful inscription, in the form of a series of runes'. These runes, which are particularly clear and legible on the current specimen, have attracted much scholarly attention. In 1991 Marian Archibald first proposed to transliterate the runes into the Latin characters 'DELAIONA', which, in turn, she interpreted as the preposition 'de' followed by a place name 'Laiona'. Archibald read this as 'of London'. However, the find distribution for these coins points clearly to a circulation in East Anglia. More significantly, the third runic character in the legend is better read as ᛋ = S. So where then is Saiona? There is certainly no obvious candidate from the list of Anglo Saxon place names.
One possibility reveals itself if we look a little further afield and abandon the concept that the place name mentioned on the coin must be a mint-signature. We might also note that preceding the runic characters we find CESIAR in Latin script, clearly an attempt at Caesar; one which reveals that our die sinker had only a loose grasp on Latin. Perhaps de Saiona represents a corruption of the Latin de Sione, of Zion. Taken together with the initial Latin element, the whole inscription might be read as Caesar of Zion, or perhaps better, the King of Zion. We might regard it as quite satisfactory that the legend in question surrounds a depiction of the Lord's crucifixion on Calvary Hill.
Early Anglo-Saxon Period, Shilling, Crispus Type, Post-Crondall Phase, struck c. 650-60 in East Anglia, helmeted and cuirassed bust right: crispvs dob ches around, rev. annuleted cross, flanked by crosses at base, within double beaded border, +cesiar ᛞᛖᛋᚨᛁᚨᚾᚨ [de saiana] around, 1.28g/12h (SCBI Abramson 8 = Abramson ASGC 720.2, this coin; N 18; S 764). Good very fine, slight die rust on obverse, otherwise with delightful buttery tone over excellent surfaces, very rare thus £7,000-£9,000
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Provenance: SNC August 2007 (HS3054); T. Abramson Collection, Part I, Spink Auction, 18 March 2021, lot 21
This coin illustrated in the Standard Catalogue of British Coins
The gold Shillings or Thrymsas of the seventh century are perhaps the most enigmatic of all English coins; for they were produced during Britain's heroic age, a period immortalised in the words of our great Venerable Historian. It is a great shame that they are exasperatingly hard to attribute with any certainty. Numerous coins carry legends but these are often blundered or confused beyond the point of recognition. A few belonging to the earliest phases of the gold coinage have been intelligibly interpreted. These include the coins of King Eadbald of Kent, bishop Paulinus of York and a few mint-signed pieces of Canterbury and York.
In discussing the late, Post-Crondall, gold Shillings, Rory Naismith notes that the Crispus type is 'the only one with a meaningful inscription, in the form of a series of runes'. These runes, which are particularly clear and legible on the current specimen, have attracted much scholarly attention. In 1991 Marian Archibald first proposed to transliterate the runes into the Latin characters 'DELAIONA', which, in turn, she interpreted as the preposition 'de' followed by a place name 'Laiona'. Archibald read this as 'of London'. However, the find distribution for these coins points clearly to a circulation in East Anglia. More significantly, the third runic character in the legend is better read as ᛋ = S. So where then is Saiona? There is certainly no obvious candidate from the list of Anglo Saxon place names.
One possibility reveals itself if we look a little further afield and abandon the concept that the place name mentioned on the coin must be a mint-signature. We might also note that preceding the runic characters we find CESIAR in Latin script, clearly an attempt at Caesar; one which reveals that our die sinker had only a loose grasp on Latin. Perhaps de Saiona represents a corruption of the Latin de Sione, of Zion. Taken together with the initial Latin element, the whole inscription might be read as Caesar of Zion, or perhaps better, the King of Zion. We might regard it as quite satisfactory that the legend in question surrounds a depiction of the Lord's crucifixion on Calvary Hill.