When a widow had her home in southwestern England cleared out, there was a stunning surprise: an old biscuit tin packed with gold and silver coins, worth more than $200,000.
Her late husband had wisely purchased the coins 50 years ago, but never told anyone about the stash, including his wife. He spent just several thousand dollars on the coins.
“One of the last places I looked was this workshop and there was a biscuit tin inside which was very heavy. I plonked it down and looked inside and saw silver coins,” auctioneer David Lay of Lay’s Auctioneers told The Independent newspaper. Beneath the silver coins were 41 South African Krugerrands and 21 British gold sovereigns, each tucked inside an individual packet alongside the original receipts.
“It was just astonishing. We have had discoveries before but all that gold was just remarkable,” said Lay. “Our client didn’t know that her husband had just gone and spent a few thousand pounds on this gold investment and stashed it away and didn’t tell her.”
The widow’s husband paid just 70-80 British pounds for each Krugerrand in 1975. That’s just $93-$107. Today, a Krugerrand is worth approximately $4,500.
Marveling on the spectacular rise in the value of gold over the decades, an auction house spokesperson noted, “It was an amazing investment by this man. What a shrewd chap her husband was.”
