ANGLO-SAXON, Kings of East Anglia. Beonna. Circa 749-760/5. AR Sceatt (15mm, 0.96 g, 9h). Mint in northern East Anglia (Thetford?); Efe, moneyer. Struck circa 757-760/5. BEOnna REX (nna in Runic) around pellet within beaded circle / Central lozenge with joined qiuncunx; + \ E \ F \ E in quadrants, double pellets flanking cross, triple-pellets flanking first two letters. Grierson, Coins of Medieval Europe 80 ; Archibald dies O4/R– (unlisted rev. die); SCBI 63 (BM), 818 (same dies); North 430; SCBC 945. Weak in part. Toned. Good VF. Rare.

From the Richard A. Jourdan Collection of Medieval European Coins, purchased from Baldwin’s, 2013.

‘In the 750s or early 760s a little known East Anglian king, Beonna, introduced a reformed coinage with a regal inscription after the Northumbrian model and having on the reverse a geometrical design with a moneyer’s name as on earlier East Anglian issues. The initiative was to be short-lived; it did not survive the Mercian conquest of East Anglia and the imposition of the new penny of Frankish fabric which was to become the staple coin of England throughout the Middle Ages.’ Grierson, p. 36.