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Help needed for intriguing medieval gold coin (unicum)!


Coinmaster

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Coolness, @Broucheion.  This gives @Pellinore's suggestion even more traction. 

I have to be reminded of the 'hacksilver' that the Vikings made of Samanid dirhams, mostly from the first half of the 10th century, showing up as far west as (for one) the Cuerdale Hoard in Yorkshire.  For that minute --including the Danegelds from England, along with the Francian ones in the 9th century-- the Viking economy was still effectively premonetary.  Their only criteria were composition (hence the notorious peck marks) and weight.

Thank you, despite the fact that their trade networks were already that much broader than the  already impressive ones of their Germanic cousins in Frisia and England, a couple of centuries earlier.  Right, all the way back to  @Coinmaster's OP.

...Honest, I'm just thinking out loud.  

Edited by JeandAcre
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  • 6 months later...

Terrific article, Anton!

Regarding the sub-motif of multiple crosslets, one other affinity did eventually land on me, although in comparison to your proposed prototypes, it's decidedly more peripheral.  But it does afford an instance of frank imitation, rather than broader adaptation, which may afford something in the way of advancing the aggregate context.

Along with Harald Bluetooth's adoption of the crosslet motif, the same was done by --Hey, Wait a minute!  I did a whole OP on this, if you go back far enough.  With your leave, here's a link to it.

 

 

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Thank you, @Coinmaster.  I'm a believer in the contention that speculation is not only a legitimate, but procedurally necessary step on the way to substantive research.  ...You have to begin somewhere.  (Edit:)  It amounts to the archaeological and historical equivalent of the broader scientific method being based on hypothesis (right, followed by testing).  But yes, coming from a consistently non-academic, correspondingly impressionistic kind of place, what I gather is that the Vikings' preference for silver over gold followed the lines of contemporary dynamics over the rest of northern Europe.  (Next edit:  That is, especially following the 7th and 8th centuries.)  ...But perhaps only more emphatically so, operant on what almost comes across as verging on a cultural, as well as macro-economic level.

Edited by JeandAcre
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On 12/21/2023 at 6:49 PM, Coinmaster said:

@JeandAcre @Roerbakmix and all other coin friends, as promised the link to the article about this interesting coin type. Please let me know what you think!
https://www.academia.edu/112015541/_2024_A_unique_medieval_gold_coin_from_the_Netherlands (my 245th article, 5 to go and my life is fulfilled haha)

 

Great article. A bit frustrating to have no conclusion but it's good not to force one.

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  • 4 months later...
Posted (edited)
On 6/10/2023 at 10:50 AM, Coinmaster said:

For a publication, I'm doing research on this incredible medieval gold coin. An unicum! ...
Harald-related coin
I think the relation with the cross type from Harald Bluetooth Gormson (959-985) is convincing...
A source for the Harald coins is this publication of Hauberg from 1900. I attached below the image with several 'halvbrakteater', but the dating (c. 940-960) seems to be too early. Another reference source is 'Malmer', but I can't find this one online. A third is this overview with coins from Denmark from David Ruckser. This book from Jens Christian Moesgaard seems also very interesting, but is not in my possession (perhaps some of you?).

Gold tari a.pngGold tari b.png

Harald a.pngHarald b.png

I am late to this party and have no magic bullet for you, @Coinmaster, Anton, but I have references old and new to the silver half bracteate that you rightly compare to your mystery coin...

Kristin Bendixen published Denmark's Money for the National Museum of Denmark (Copenhagen, 1967, translated by Helen Fogh), an introductory work, where she looks for inspirations behind Denmark's oldest coins from about 825 to about 1000.

Bendixex.DenmarksMoney(1967).jpg.db85911953f6244f028661b2eda625f5.jpg

The Byzantine influence on the silver half bracteate (possibly of Harald Bluetooth or Olaf Skatkonge) is a fair suggestion. So is the runic element, per @Hrefn, and the Anglo-Saxon influence, too.

I have a copy of "This book from Jens Christian Moesgaard," namely King Harald's Cross Coinage: Christian Coins for the Merchants of Haitabu and the King's Soldiers (National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 2015).  287 pp., 30 plates. 
Moesgaard.KingHarold.jpg.8c6592321bf8ff94fe04c21bbf14e2ae.jpg

The half bracteate "cross coin" is ubiquitous among the hoards documented there, gold coin nil.  These cross coins are described as "the late derivatives of Charlemagne's Dorestad coinage struck at Haithabu during the 10th century." The scholarship of early Danish coinage between 1967 and 2015 does not appear to have encompassed gold coins such as the one you're studying. 

Edited by Anaximander
Added comment about runes and Anglo-Saxon influence, cited in the work by Bendixen..
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3 hours ago, Anaximander said:

The scholarship of early Danish coinage between 1967 and 2015 does not appear to have encompassed gold coins such as the one you're studying. 

Thanks @Anaximander! Yes, Jens Christian Moesgaard wasn't very enthousiastic about any possible Viking-related suggestion for this coin type. Hopefuly more coins of this type will resurface again some time!

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Huge thanks, just from here, to @Coinmaster and @Anaximander for your plethora of exciting bibliographic references!  I'm looking forward to seeing what I can find online for any books by Moesgaard, just to start with. 

...Why not?  This example made it onto my list of Top 10 Coins of 2023 --a true 'bucket list' coin. 

image.jpeg.58b00fce408a65d5ddb08f372f3f9b4e.jpeg

I was initially seeing elements of the Mammen Style (c. 950-1025), but there are also affinities with the earlier Jelling style, named after (...dramatic pause --irony, there!) Harald's Jelling Stone.  ...Don't know if that's of even peripheral relevance to the present context....  Anyway, it's Time to look for some of these books!

267px-Jelling-grosses-tier.gifhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelling_stones

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