A RARE 1,200-year-old coin found in Hampshire is set to fetch about £700 at an auction next week.

The silver penny, found by a metal detectorist at Broughton in January, was made at the Canterbury Mint some time between 796 and 821, during the reign of Coenwulf, King of Mercia.

It is now expected to sell for between £600 and £800 when it is auctioned at Spink in Bloomsbury, London, next Wednesday.

The coin may have lain in the earth undisturbed for more than 1,000 years.

Auctioneers Spink describe the coin as "a field find" and although it has "soil deposits in recesses and minor flan distortion" it is in "otherwise good very fine" condition.

The penny is a Tribtrach type, so-called because of its distinctive design featuring three lines meeting at the centre.

The coin also features the name of Ethelmod, the so-called moneyer whose job it was to check the weight, fineness and purity of Canterbury coins during the reign of Coenwulf.

Few of this type of penny are known to have survived.

Gregory Edmund, a specialist in the coins department at Spink, said: "Currently about two dozen examples of this particular type by the moneyer Ethelmod of the mint at Canterbury are recorded inthe latest publications on the coinage of this period."

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Silver penny found by a metal detectorist at Broughton was made atthe Canterbury Mint sometime between 796 and 821 (www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/15170225.Rare_1_200_year_old
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