Hundreds of Gold Coins Discovered During Kitchen Demo

A couple renovating a kitchen in England was shocked to discover more than 260 gold coins dating back more than 600 years, according to the BBC. The report said the coins were sold by Spink & Son auctioneers in Bloomsbury, London, for £754,000, including the final purchase and fees — roughly $742,000 by current exchange rates.

The coins, believed to be from 1610-1727, belonged to the Fernley-Maisters, a “Hull family involved in Baltic trading,” according to the BBC. Dozens of investors purchased portions of the stash. The most valuable, an “imperfectly minted coin from 1720,” sold for £62,400, or roughly $61,455.

BBC reported the coins were discovered in the Ellerby, East Yorkshire, home in 2019 but sold only recently. They were found inside a pot about the size of a soda can underneath concrete and 18th Century floorboards. The report did not identify the couple who made the discovery, and it’s not clear when the coins were hidden in the home.

“Picture the scene: you’re choosing to re-lay your uneven kitchen floor, you put a pick axe through the concrete and just beneath you see a tiny sliver of gold,” auctioneer Gregory Edmund said, according to the BBC. “At the time, you think it must just be a bit of electrical cable, but you find it’s a gold round disc and beneath it there are hundreds more.”

The auction house called the finding one of the largest hoards of 18th Century English gold coins found in Great Britain.

“I have never seen a response to an auction like that before, and the results testify it, my provisional estimate was demolished three times over,” Edmund told Business Insider. “It dwarfed any pre-conceived expectations and set dozens of world records along the way.

“The story was extraordinary, and that is what achieved the mind-blowing result. I do hope people think before ripping up their floors, though.”

This isn’t the first time someone uncovered odd or old objects hidden inside their homes. In July 2021, a Michigan man demolishing the back steps of his home uncovered more than 150 bowling balls. Discoveries have even been made in churches, like plumber Justin Cauley did last December, finding envelopes filled with cash at celebrity pastor Joel Osteen’s megachurch in Houston.

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