A house renovation in northern England has uncovered a hoard of gold coins, which could be worth up to £250,000 at auction next month.
The find is one of the greatest treasures of 18th-century English gold coins ever discovered in Britain, according to auction house Spink & Son in a press release sent to Britain. CNN on Thursday (1st).
While renovating their kitchen in July 2019, residents unearthed an earthenware cup with salt glaze buried beneath the concrete and floorboards of their home in Ellerby, North Yorkshire.
The cup, described as no bigger than a can of soda, contained more than 260 gold coins dating from 1610 to 1727. The coin stash has an estimated value of £100,000 in today’s purchasing power, auctioneers said.
Gregory Edmund, an auctioneer at Spink & Son, said the remarkable treasure is unlike any find in British archeology or like any coin auction in living memory.
“It’s a wonderful and truly unexpected discovery from such an unpretentious location,” Edmund said in the press release.
“This discovery of over 260 coins is also one of the largest in Britain’s archaeological record, and certainly for the period of the 18th century,” he added.
“The coins almost certainly belonged to the Fernley-Maisters, Joseph and Sarah, who were married in 1694,” the press release reads.
According to Spink & Son, the Maisters were an influential mercantile family from the 16th to the 18th century. They traded iron ore, lumber, and coal from the Baltic states, and several generations held positions as legislators in the early 1700s.
Their family line dwindled shortly after the couple’s deaths, which is presumably why the coins were never recovered, the auction house added.
Meanwhile, Edmund said the findings reflect the £50 and £100 coins that were used at the time.
“Joseph and Sarah clearly distrusted the newly formed Bank of England, the ‘note’ and even the gold coin of their time because they (chose) to hold so many coins dating back to the English Civil War and beforehand,” he added.
“Why they never recovered the coins when they were really easy to find just below the original 18th century tablets is an even bigger mystery, but it’s one hell of a piggy bank.”
Source: CNN Brasil
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