Gold coins found under the floor sold for a staggering amount

More than 260 coins were discovered by a couple in 2019 while renovating the kitchen of an old house in Ellerby, East Yorkshire. They were lying in a container between a concrete slab and 18th-century floorboards. A provisional estimate of their price was around £200,000. However, international attention grew after the story was published, raising the original estimate many times over.

The coins, dating from 1610 to 1727, belonged to the Fernley-Maisters, a family of maritime merchants originally from Hull. According to auctioneers Spink & Son, Joseph Fernley and Sarah Maister were married in 1694 and lived in Ellerby. Joseph died in 1725 aged 76 and Sarah died in her 80s twenty years later. The family line died out soon afterwards.

The auction house went on to say that the collection then represented the equivalent of approximately £100,000 (about 2.8 million crowns) today and is, according to them, "one of the greatest treasures of English gold coins from the 18th century. century ever found in Britain". Auctioneer Gregory Edmund described the hoard as "120 years of English history hidden in a pot the size of a soda can".

"Imagine the scene: you decide to re-lay an uneven kitchen floor, you stick a pick through the concrete and just below you see a small sliver of gold. At that moment you think it must just be an exposed piece of electrical cable, but you realise it's a golden round disc and there are hundreds more underneath," Mr Edmund said. The identity of the finders remains unknown.

Interested private collectors have come from literally all over the world - America, Europe, Australia, China and Japan. The collection was eventually sold to dozens of buyers, many of whom participated in the auction online and by phone. The target amount was described by the auctioneer as "absolutely extraordinary", with the total purchase price, including fees, coming to a staggering £754,000. That's more than 21 million crowns!

An imperfectly struck coin from 1720 was sold for the largest individual sum, fetching £62,400 - or about 1.76 million crowns. Mr Edmund described the bidding as "electrifying". "I will never see an auction like this again," he added.

Roman Nemec

Sources: bbc.com, hulldailymail.co.uk

One of the Ellerby Treasure coins

The coins were found by an anonymous couple during a kitchen renovation

Gold coins in a jar