Edward the Confessor Penny, Pyramids type, "Hur", Wilgrip, ex Maudlin collection

Edward the Confessor (1042-66), silver Penny, pyramids type (1065-66), "Hur" Mint, Moneyer Wilgrip, crowned King right, holding sceptre, bust to edge of coin, legend commences lower left, +EADPARD REX, rev. annulet at centre of voided cross within linear circle, pellet topped from inner circle in each angle, Latin legend surrounding, +PLEGRIP ON HVR, weight 1.22g (N.831; S.1184). Toned, with slight undulation, otherwise very fine and the only example we have ever seen in commerce and unique with this reverse reading, an extremely rare moneyer name at this period of time and the Hertford Mint rare for Edward the Confessor.

This unusual Penny clearly has the mint signature "HVR" as the H has a definite horizontal bar when compared with the N of ON right next to it which has an angled bar. It has been ventured that HVR could be Huntingdon but no Wilgrip moneyer is known working there. We believe the best match for Wilgrip at a similar mint would be Hertford, even though that mint name is usually rendered as HER or HEOR. Wilgrip is a known moneyer for Hertford and known across five types of Edward the Confessor coin from expanding cross to the pyramids type at the end of the reign. He is not known there after this type and we can only trace one other example of a Wilgrip pyramids type Penny that languishes in the British Museum Collection. That coin has Wilgrip rendered as PILGRIP ON HEORT, undoubtedly Hertford Mint and this coin is seemingly only the second pyramids type piece to emerge in addition to that. Looking at the academic work by Anthony Freeman on Edward the Confessor, he recorded back in the mid 1980s a total of 65 coins of the Hertford Mint of Edward the Confessor. The lone pyramids piece of Wilgrip being the one in the British Museum.

Provenance:

Found Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, 2011, EMC 2012.0026.

Coin Register, British Numismatic Journal 2013, A192.

Ex Terence Maudlin Collection, Dix Noonan and Webb, Auction 160, 5^th June 2019, lot 317.