Couple finds $75,000 treasure of 17th century coins during kitchen renovation
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A British couple discovered a treasure of 17th century coins while renovating their house.
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The collection includes silver shillings from Elizabeth I and gold coins from Charles I.
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Further evidence that a house could hide an amazing and valuable secret.
A British couple’s renovation project turned into a profitable venture when they discovered a $75,000 treasure beneath their kitchen floor.
Robert and Betty Fooks were renovating their farmhouse in southern England when they discovered a valuable collection of 17th-century coins hidden beneath their kitchen.
Fooks’ South Poorton Farm is a 17th-century cottage in a small hamlet in West Dorset.
The couple purchased the nave in 2019 and removed the modern concrete floor as part of an extensive renovation.
The coins were discovered when digging two feet deep to expand the lower area.
This discovery is the latest in a long line of historic and valuable discoveries made by chance in backyards, basements, under floors, behind walls and in attics, and is proof that your home could be hiding an incredible secret.
Betty Fooks, an NHS nurse, told the Guardian: “It’s a 400-year-old house, so there was a lot of work to do. We removed all the floors and ceilings and rebuilt the stone walls.”
“One evening my husband was digging with a pickaxe when he called to say they had found something. He put all the coins in a bucket. If we hadn’t lowered the bottom, they would still be hidden there,” she said.
The collection was handed over to the British Museum for identification and cleaning.
Dukes Auctioneers stated on its website that the British Museum believes the coins were deposited at some point around 1642-44. It was around this time that the English Civil War began and the area around Poorton was marked by numerous conflicts.
The 1,000-coin “Poorton Coin Hoard” went under the hammer at Duke’s Auctioneers on April 23.
The collection, which includes silver shillings of Elizabeth I, gold Unite coins of Charles I, silver sixpence coins of James I and much more, was valued at £35,000 or $43,600 before the auction.
However, the treasure exceeded all expectations when it was sold for 60,000 pounds (75,000 dollars), the BBC reports.
According to the BBC, the Fooks couple said the money would help them pay off their mortgage.
Business Insider has contacted Duke’s Auctioneers for comment.
Spectacular discoveries
In 2019, another couple in England made a similar discovery.
A hoard of 264 English gold coins dating from 1610 to 1727 was unearthed by an unnamed couple while digging up their kitchen floor.
It is believed that the treasure once belonged to a merchant family who made their fortune through trade in the Baltic States.
The collection was auctioned in 2022 for £754,000 or $842,330.
Coins are small and easy to hide, and they can be found in many of the secret treasures discovered by unsuspecting homeowners. Other lost artifacts have ranged from first editions of superhero comics to rare vintage cars.
One of the most spectacular discoveries, however, was a 16th-century Italian Renaissance masterpiece hidden under an old mattress in an attic in France in 2014.
The painting “Judith Beheading Holofernes,” believed to be by Caravaggio, was later sold for $170 million.
The unnamed family that took advantage of this astonishing windfall reportedly speculated that the work may have been smuggled out of Italy by an ancestor who had fought in Napoleon’s army in the early 19th century.
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