Odd Anglo-Saxon Coin found by metal detectorist

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A coin was found by metal detectorist Steve Rourke (using a Fisher F75 detector) somewhere in the region of "Fordingbridge" in Hampshire and recorded on the UK Detector Finds Database. It was originally recorded by the finder as a modern cast silver fake of a 'penny' of Coenwulf of Mercia of unknown origin. If it was a fake, and assuming the detectorist himself was not fooling around, it would have meant that somebody had been seeding fields in this region with fake coins presumably hoping that they will be found by detectorists. One reason for this would have been so that these coins thereby enter the database of "legitimate" finds so that other examples of the fake can be legitimised with reference to them.

Obverse: Crude diademed bust right. + COENVVLF REX M
Reverse: Cross crosslet. + HEREBERHT East Anglian mint? (Moneyer: Herebeorht)
Issue Date: AD 798 - 821
Cast in silver, weight ??, diameter 20.6mm
References: North 364; Spink 920
Recorded elsewhere: "Yes. Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge"

The original identification by the finder on the UKDFD of this coin as a modern fake is yet another case which illustrates all too clearly the potential for the archaeological record to be contaminated by information from coins of uncertain origins and false findspots. The same 'UK Detector Finds database' was used to record alleged findspots of other fakes recently. In another case the object that was reported as having been "found" by a metal detector usng artefact hunter was documented as stolen. In other cases, one suspects artefact hunters are saying things were found in their own gardens which were found elsewhere (one possible example here?), or are assigning findspots to areas where they have permission to search when the object could have come from somewhere where they did not. We simply cannot know the scale of this phenomenon, but neither should we shut our eyes to the possibility that it is happening.

UPDATE: This coin if offered on ebay with this photo would have been rejected by many buyers as a fake for a number of reasons. It is rather flat looking, shows few features consistent with it being struck rather than cast, and most disturbing of all has projecting irregularities which look for all the world like positive impressions of bubbles in the shaping medium - like for example on the 'R" and crosslets of the reverse. Although originally actually published on the UKDFD as a fake, it seems the coin has been accepted as authentic by numismatists at the Fitzwilliam. The UKDFD entry has been updated and the coin now identified as an authentic coin. This just goes to show how subjective such assessments are. An amateur coin collector with a metal detector says one thing, a museum-based coin person to whom the object is shown says another. This goes to show how dodgy building datasets for archaeological analysis relying on non-professional identifications of archaeological objects found can be. And we there is no record in the public domain concerning precisely where this coin was found and what was found with it.

Here is the cache of the original page before it was edited, obliterating the original identification.

Above are photos of the obverse and reverse of this odd coin from the UK Detector Finds Database.
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