Beschreibung:

VIKING COINS - HAROLD I - LONDON / WULFRIC - HIBERNO-NORSE IMITATIVE FLEUR DE LIS PENNY 1035-1040 AD Hiberno-Norse imitative series. Obv: profile bust with sceptre and +HARO LREX aberrant legend. Rev: long voided cross and lis dividing fully retrograde +PV LFR ICO NLV legend for a moneyer Wulfric at "London" mint. 0.82 grams. Extremely fine. Excessively rare as an imitative issue; possibly unique for these dies. Literature S.-; N.- (but see S. 1164; N. 804; BMC type V for prototype). Footnotes The moneyer Wulfric is not recorded for London among the more than 1,100 coins of Harold I listed by H. A. Parsons in The Coins of Harold I, (BNJ 15, 1919), in the volumes of Sylloge of Coins of the British Isles or in the Early Medieval Corpus and has not apparently been recorded previously; the reverse legend being fully retrograde strongly suggests that this is a contemporary imitation of Hiberno-Norse or Viking, possibly Danish, origin. Harold was an illegitimate son of Cnut and regent to Harthacnut and gained the throne when Harthacnut could not travel to England due to problems in Denmark.