- A British couple found a hoard of 17th-century coins during a home renovation.
- The collection includes silver shillings of Elizabeth I and gold coins of Charles I.
- Further proof that a house could hide an astonishing and precious secret.
A British couple’s home renovation project turned into a profitable venture when they discovered a $43,000 treasure under their kitchen floor.
Robert and Betty Fooks were renovating their farmhouse in the south of England when they discovered a valuable collection of 17th-century coins hidden under their kitchen.
Fooks’ South Poorton Farm is a 17th century cottage in a small hamlet in West Dorset.
The couple purchased the longhouse in 2019 and removed the modern concrete floor during their extensive renovation.
The pieces were discovered by digging down two feet to enlarge the area at the bottom.
This discovery is the latest in historical and valuable discoveries made accidentally in yards, basements, basements, behind walls and in attics, and proof that your home could be hiding an astonishing secret.
Betty Fooks, an NHS health visitor, told the Guardian: “It’s a 400-year-old house so there was a lot of work to do. We took down all the floors and ceilings and brought it back to its stone walls.
“One evening my husband was digging with a pickaxe when he called to tell me they had found something. He put all the coins in a bucket. If we hadn’t lowered the ground, they would always be hidden there,” she said. said.
The collection was handed over to the British Museum for identification and cleaning.
Dukes Auctioneers said on its website that the British Museum believes the coins were deposited only once around 1642-44. The English Civil War began around this time and the area around Poorton saw many conflicts.
The 1,000-piece “Poorton Coin Hoard” is now scheduled to go up for auction on April 23 at Duke’s Auctioneers.
The collection, which includes silver shillings of Elizabeth I, gold coins of Charles I, silver sixpence coins of James I, and more, has an estimated value of £35,000, or 43,600 $.
Business Insider has contacted Duke’s Auctioneers for comment.
Spectacular discoveries
The painting titled “Judith Beheading Holofernes”, photographed during its presentation in Paris, France, on April 12, 2016, attributed to the Italian master Caravaggio (1571-1610) and was discovered in an attic in Toulouse. REUTERS/Charles Platiau
In 2019, a similar discovery was made by another couple in England.
A hoard of 264 English gold coins dating from 1610 to 1727 was discovered by an anonymous couple while digging their kitchen floor.
The treasure was thought to once belong to a family of traders who made their fortune in the Baltic trade.
The collection sold at auction in 2022 for £754,000, or $842,330.
Small and easy to hide, coins feature in many secret hoards that unsuspecting owners have stumbled upon. Other lost items range from first editions of superhero comics to rare vintage cars.
But one of the most spectacular discoveries was a 16th-century Italian Renaissance masterpiece hidden under an old mattress in an attic in France in 2014.
“Judith Beheading Holofernes,” believed to be a painting by Caravaggio, was later sold for $170 million.
The anonymous family who shared the astonishing windfall speculated that the work may have been driven out of Italy by an ancestor who fought in Napoleon’s army in the early 19th century, according to reports.
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