17th
February 2025
Next club meeting Monday 3rd March
Club Auction – for Members only. Also see Notices
below for more details.
Monday 7th April
A talk by Maria Lloyd - Hercules and Liber Pater at
Lepcis Magna: Shifting Meanings
Meetings are held at the Abbey Baptist Church, Abbey
Square, commencing at 7.00 p.m.
NOTE: The March
meeting will be held in the Sanctuary room on the Ground Floor of the church.
Notices
•The March meeting will be the club auction. Nobody
will be allowed to look any lots until all the lots have been put out. Please
keep well away from the lots until an official notice is made, saying that
viewing can begin. As usual, there will be no dealing at this meeting.
•The time for viewing lots is BEFORE the
auction starts, not during the auction.
•Please also note you need to print off your own copy
of the auction list (which will be sent separately), NONE will be
available at the meeting.
February 2025 Meeting
Before the meeting’s talk Henry gave a eulogy on John
Crowley, a long-standing member of the club,, who passed away recently. A short
silence was held in his memory.
Viking Silver: Coins, Trade, and the Monetary System –
exploring the Viking World through their monetary practices. A talk by
Zheng Tao Chong
Zheng came suitably attired for his talk to the club,
dressed in Viking era tunic, breeches, shoes, belt and purse, and with two
Thor’s hammer charms.
Note that on right of the table is the simple balance
scales used by merchants and traders of the period. These are of a simple,
robust and easily portable design.
The Viking economy was very much a bullion economy, and primarily based on silver.
Gold was less
commonly used, although it was known and traded. In the bullion economy, weight
and metal purity were paramount and not the form it took. So, transactions
could be in ingots, bars, hack silver, jewelry, ornaments and coins. These
items would be weighed against known calibrated lead weights. The advantage of
the system was it was flexible, and items easily
divided and tested for purity. Culturally the Vikings were keen to maintain
their bullion economy, and indeed coins were often melted to produce arm and
neck rings, and brooches. However prolonged contact with the coin-based
economies of the Frankish Empire and Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms eventually led to the
adoption of coinage as a medium of exchange in Viking communities.
The designs of
Frankish and Anglo-Saxon coins of the 8th to 10th
centuries were influenced by the coinage of the Romans, and both the denier and
penny reflect this heritage. In the 10th century Anglo-Saxon coin
design was standardized, and this penny pattern was followed by the Vikings.
One of the first of these was a penny of the
alarmingly named Eric Bloodaxe.
Typical Viking hoard
Edgar reform penny
1.6g c.973
Eric Bloodaxe penny 1.24 g c.950
Viking coins were
mainly minted silver pennies (penningar). These coins were valued by weight
rather than face value, highly portable and could be halved and quartered to
provide small change. These Viking penningar also had dots around the edge to
dissuade clipping of the coins.
Coin of
Olav Trygvasson
995. First Norwegian
coin
Zheng also
described the elements found on Viking coins. Crosses and Latin inscriptions
are commonly found as they convey Christian faith, and thus acceptable to
Christian European powers. Similarly Roman style monarch’s
heads, draped or wreathed with Latin legends are
the usual obverses encountered. Rarely do Old Norse or Runic symbols appear
(indicating a detachment from the Anglo-Saxon heritage); nor do pagan symbols,
as these could render the coins unacceptable in Christian countries.
In the later 10th
and early 11th centuries the need for Danegeld meant the production
of English coins was quite variable, responding to both economic and political
circumstances.
While it is not
surprising the Frankish denier and English penny, and even Roman coins are
found in hoards throughout the Viking world, there were also very considerable
numbers of Middle Eastern Dirhams, both gold and silver, present in hoards. Oriental coins have been assessed as
comprising 35% of hoard coins in Scandinavia. Why should this be? Zheng showed
maps of the Middle East and Europe to illustrate the routes through which
Arabic coins reached Scandinavia. One was the western route from mints in Morocco
and Spain and then travelling through the Frankish empire to Nordic countries.
The eastern route carried coins minted at many sites and in many countries
between Alexandria in Egypt to Tashkent in (modern) Uzbekistan, travelling
along the Russian rivers controlled by Swedish Vikings.
To illustrate the
origins of coins in Scandinavian hoards Zheng displayed the pie chart below.
The term German can be also interpreted as from the Frankish Empire.
Over ˝ million
silver Dirham coins have been found in Scandinavia. Interestingly 5 to 10 % of
the silver Dirhams found in graves were fakes, and clearly easily passed to
Scandinavians who were unlikely to read Arabic script. Some Dirhams were also
of great age when they entered Scandinavia, some of them more than 200 years old
In Gotland many
silver hoards were protected by serpent rings, which dissuaded others than the owners not to touch the hoard.
Zheng then
described the use of gold currency in England and northern Europe, hack gold
and some coins that were imitations of gold dirhams, the latter passed because
genuine Arabic coinage was already widely used in trade. In the later Viking
age silver became scarcer as the trade routes in south-eastern Europe and the
Middle East (the
major source of silver) were disrupted by the decline of eastern empires. In
Northwest Europe and particularly Iceland Wadmal, a woollen
fabric was used as an alternative currency.
Finally, Zheng
displayed replicas of Aethelred II Long Cross and 1st hand pennies,
Anlaf Guthfrithson Raven penny, Harald Bluetooth Cross coin, Umayyad silver
dirham and Abbasid silver dirham pendant. The replicas were place
alongside photographs of their originals (see photograph of the table at the
head of this article).
The club members
roundly applauded Zheng for his talk and the thorough research that he had put
behind his presentation.
Future Events.
• London Coin Fair – Shortlands, London
W6 – 7th June 2025
• Midland Coin Fair - National
Motorcycle Museum –9th March 2025
• Spinks Auctions – 7-21 March 2025
• Noonans, Mayfair, W1J 8BQ – 5th-6th
& 11th March 2025
Warwick & Warwick – 16th April 2025
St James Auctions –13th March & 8th April 2025
Past Events
Ten years ago in
2015, Ross Farmer gave a talk Masonic jewels and
badges
Club Secretary
