Dobunni & East Wilts

The Dobunni tribe covered one of the largest areas in Iron Age Britain extending over the western borders into modern day Wales. Some say the pink coloured gold used to strike most of the Dobunni staters is such because the gold was mined in the Welsh hills and had an above average copper content. There are 9 main types of stater, 7 inscribed, 3 quarter staters, one inscribed and an extensive series of units, two of which are inscribed. All Dobunni coins are rare with some being extremely rare. The ruler ‘Inamn’ is only known from one base stater & a unit, hopefully more coins will come to light in the future to clarify his name. One interesting point of discussion is the symbol shown on the obverse of 8 of the staters, I’ve heard to referred to as a corn ear, tree or skeleton, my personal favourite is a tree as I imagine the land of the Dobunni to have been heavily forested back in the 1st Century BC and just about everything was made from wood back then so a worthy tribute to an important natural resource.
The tribes centre was at Bagendon before moving to modern day Cirencester, known by the Romans as ‘Corinium’ or ‘Kironium’,one wonders about the similarities in this name to the Dobunni king Corio.

Also in this category you will find coins of the East Wilts tribe.

The East Wiltshire tribe is a small group striking uninscribed coinage in gold (mainly base) silver & bronze. For many years the East Wilts coins were looked upon as crude contemporary copies of the Dobunnic series but thanks to many more being found by metal detectorists in recent years they are now recognised as much more than this. Found in North & East Wiltshire, Oxfordshire and occasionally in West Berkshire this tribe occupied land sandwiched between the Dobunni to the North & Atrebates to the South both of which must have been friendly neighbours as if not then surely the East Wilts Tribe would never have been as successful as to strike quite a series of coinage.
These coins are rare & on the national market seldom offered for sale however we are based just a few miles from the East Wilts area so some of our local detectorists are lucky enough to find them. This allows us to offer a good stock of East Wilts coins.