Important British and World Coins including Important Irish Coins from a Private Collection (Part II)

Archbishops of Canterbury, Jaenberht (765-92), under Offa, Penny, c. 780-92, quatrefoil, cross pommée in centre, lobes containing trefoils in angles, +o ff ar ex, rev. cross within quatrefoil, trefoils in angles, iaenberht ariepi, 1.10g/10h (Blunt –; cf. N 224; cf. S 882). Slightly bent with minor edge chip, otherwise very fine, dark tone, excessively rare, apparently only one similar coin recorded (£3,000-4,000)

The very rare joint issues of Offa and Archbishop Jaenberht were struck in the decade c. 782-92. Nothing resembling the present specimen is included in Blunt’s 1961 classification of the coinage, where all but one of the coins shows the royal title in two lines across the field. A similar reverse die is, however, represented in the Early Medieval Corpus [2000.0049], coupled with a quite different obverse, on a coin found in Hampshire in 2000. Stylistically, the obverse, with its lobes, dagger-shaped crosses and trefoils of pellets, shows affinities with Blunt 43, a coin of Eahlmund, a moneyer however normally associated with the mint of London