Penny - Howel Dda Two line type

Hywel Dda — Hywel the Good — ruled much of Wales and briefly held enough political sway to issue coinage, an extraordinary step for a Welsh king. His coins were struck to Anglo-Saxon weight standards and almost certainly produced by English moneyers, reflecting his close alliance with the court of Æthelstan and later Edmund I. The two-line type takes its name from the arrangement of the moneyer's inscription across the reverse field, a format current in English mints of the same period.

Surviving examples are exceptionally rare. Hywel's coinage represents the only indigenous Welsh royal coin issue before the Norman conquest.