File:ESS-0F72F4 2010 T790 Early Medieval coins, two fused pennies (FindID 420219).jpg

English: A fused lump comprising two silver pennies, heavily chipped and with some concretion adhering. The upper and lower surfaces display two obverses. Both are coins of the Vikings in the Danelaw. One is of the Orsnaforda type, probably struck in the east or south Midlands c.895-900. The other is of the St Edmund issue, struck in East Anglia or the east Midlands, c.895-918. Coins of these issues are of fine silver (90% or more). The pair of coins was probably lost or deposited c.900. Obv. 1 : OR4N0 / [ ]LFRED[ ] / [ ]Dã, in three lines. Orsnaforda type Obv. 2: [ ]4CE[ ], top bar of the central 0 within an inner circle. St Edmund type Wt. 2.84 g, fused lump. This pair of coins is of considerable historical interest. Previously the Orsnaforda type is only known to have been found in the major hoard from Cuerdale, Lancs. in 1840, deposited c.905, and from one single-find from the River Ouse in York, found c.1740 (now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford). This discovery in north Essex therefore extends the area over which the coinage is known to have circulated. It also reinforces links with Shelford (Cambs.), only eight miles from Little Chesterford, and where the Vikings are known to have struck a very rare issue of coins in the name of an Earl Sihtric that copy the Orsnaforda issue. It is possible that the Orsnaforda type was a local issue from this area. The combination with a coin of the St Edmund type is not unexpected, but it does help to confirm the provisional dating that had been put on these two issues overlapping at the end of the ninth century.

Mark Blackburn
16 October 2010