Continental Sceatta Series E

Pictured here is the second find to come in from Roger Paul. This is a silver sceatta, which dates from the early Anglo-Saxon period.

This is a Continental issue but silver coins like this circulated quite widely in England. It belongs to series E, which is the least scarce of the Continental sceattas. On the obverse is a degraded head, often described as a porcupine. On the reverse is a standard, within which is a square with a ring in the centre and a pellet in each corner. The massive Abramson collection of English and Continental sceattas, which was sold at auction in 2021, included dozens of examples of series E. However, none of them matched the reverse of Roger’s find.

Interestingly, before detecting machines became widely used, English and Continental sceattas were difficult to collect as they were quite rare. It wasn’t long before more example started to appear on the market through detecting finds. Hoards were rare and still are but detectorists discovered many productive sites, which must have been markets or places where business was conducted during the early Anglo-Saxon period. Today it is easy to collect sceattas, due to the fact that detectorists have unearthed so many that there is more than enough to satisfy the demand from keen collectors.

Valuation

This sceatta would grade better than Fine but the imagery is a bit blurred. Coins of series E are fairly common but as this example has an interesting reverse my price range would be £50-60.

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