Penny of Charlemagne - the evidence of the Steckborn hoard

[Tejas]

There is sometimes confusion about the attribution of the coin below to eiher Charlemagne or Charles the Bald (843-877). The lettering (wide spaces) and the chevron inside the monogram are sometimes cited as indication that the coin belongs to the reign of Charlemagne, but uncertainty remains. At the weekend I visited a special exhibition at the archaeological museum at Konstanz in southern Germany about the Reichenau Monastery. The exhibition was about the Reichenau manuscripts, but they also showed the Steckborn coin hoard. 

This hoard was discovered in 1830 near a village called Steckborn. The hoard consisted of 7 north African Dirhems of different governors and one penny like the one below. Interestingly, all  7 Dirhems were minted between 771 and 792. If the penny was minted during the reign of Charles the Bald, it would have been an outlier, that was 50 to 100 years younger than the other coins. Instead, it seems more likely that the penny belonged roughly to the same period as the Dirhems, which indicates that this coin type was indeed minted under Charlemagne. 

 

 

Edited July 10 by Tejas