The Southern Danelaw

St. Martin of Lincoln Coinage, c.920. AR Penny. SCI MARTI in two lines divided by sword, rev. cross on voided cross, LINCOLIA CIVIT. 1.29 g. SCBI Norweb 129 = Mossop 8 = Blackburn M4 - this coin; N.486; S.963.
Two small pecks on obverse. Richly toned. Near EF. A Viking penny of the highest rarity.

Ex E. M. Norweb (Pt. I, lot 34), H. R. Mossop, A. E. Bagnall, R. C. Lockett (Pt. I, lot 451), G. J. Bascom (lot 31), Astronomer (lot 121), H. Montagu (Pt. I, lot 374, pl.VI), W. Brice, E. Wigan, and Earl of Pembroke (lot 30).

Struck in Lincoln during the turbulent period when the Anglo-Saxons were vying with the Vikings for control of the Five Boroughs of the southern Danelaw, this exceptional type has long been known for, as the cataloguer of the Bascom sale put it, 'the magnitude of its rarity.' Only seven complete specimens and two small fragments are recorded. The coin offered her, first illustrated in the plates of the Earl of Pembroke collection in 1746, is the only complete specimen not in a museum collection.