LONDON – The British Museum said Wednesday it paid more than $630,000 for a rare, 1,200-year-old coin, believed to be the most ever paid for a piece of British money.
The coin, which dates from Anglo-Saxon times, depicts King Coenwulf, who ruled parts of southern England.
“The Coenwulf gold coin is tremendously significant as a new source of information on Anglo-Saxon kingship in the early ninth century,” said British Museum curator Gareth Williams.
The Coenwulf coin is one of only eight known gold coins of the mid to late Saxon period, of which the museum now owns seven. It was discovered by a man with a metal detector beside the River Ivel in Bedfordshire, central England, in 2001 and later sold to an American collector living in Britain.
When the owner put it up for sale last year, the government imposed a temporary export ban in an attempt to give a British buyer a chance to buy it.
The National Heritage Memorial Fund provided $405,000, and the rest of the purchase price was paid by other groups.
Coenwulf ruled from 796-821, when he was the single most powerful ruler in a Britain divided into clans and fiefdoms.
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