Obverse:
Prancing dog with long legs, curled tail and
long tongue, right. Pellets below tail, between
legs and below tongue. Beaded border around.
Reverse:
Large spiral branch with smaller branches
sprouting from the outside. Pellets of ‘fruit’
at the ends of the smaller branches. Single
annulet at end of main branch. Solid line
outside border with pellet border within.
History:
By the middle of the 7th century the gold
coinage was increasingly being debased with
silver, and gold was superseded entirely by
675 AD. These silver coins, called Sceattas
are the first English pennies. This coin was
minted during the period when Aethelbald,
King of Mercia, was overlord of the southern
English.
