This extremely rare penny of Ecgberht was found in North Yorkshire in 2022. It’s importance stems from the fact that it is a coin of a West Saxon king produced at the London mint. This was possible because Ecgberht’s conquest of London in 829 and his subsequent assumption of the title “King of the Mercians”.

In Naismith’s “The Coinage of Southern England “, published in 2011, only four examples are listed. Two are in the British Museum and one in the Fitzwilliam. in In the decade since, three more were discovered by detectorists, all in a poor state of preservation. This is only the eighth known example of Ecgberht’s London coinage.

This Angel of Richard III was found by Mariusz Clepluch during a detecting rally on 21 April 2022in a freshly-ploughed field in Overton, Hampshire. It was recorded at the PAS as SUR-7A0B6C.

Mariusz, who has been detecting for five years, described the find: “I was at a detecting event and I had not found anything all day when I got a good signal. I dug down 4ins and found this coin. When I showed it to other people there they were quite excited and said it could be very valuable.” “

When unearthed the coin was a bit crumpled and has since been straightened. The coin’s mint mark is a boar’s head and it is an extremely rare coin.

Mariusz continued “When I got home I researched it and found it to was a Richard III angel and examples had sold for up to £20,000. It was quite a surprise. He is a baker from south London and said “On the day of the auction I will be baking bread early in the morning but then I will stop for the sale“. He will split the proceeds of the sale with the landowner and spend his share on a family holiday to Turkey.