Cash, Or Rather, Coins In The Attic

It’s usually the stuff of fairy tales, but the delivery of a collection of $20 gold coins and medals valued at around $1m and going for sale at Bonhams in Los Angeles in June is real enough. Its discovery at the Champagne Lanson Bonnet vineyard in France a year ago would have had no problem gracing the pages of Hans Christian Andersen.

According to the vineyard, a number of the coins rained down on a worker remodeling a former grape-drying facility.

Further investigation in the attic above uncovered 497 gold US coins minted between 1851 and 1928, which had been untouched for nearly a century and range in condition from very fine to choice mint state. It is not known how the coins found their way to the attic in the eastern village of Les Riceys, France, but the building was owned by a wine producer who traded with the US and England in the 1930s.

Under French law, half the proceeds from the auction will go to the individual who discovered the coins, a man described as a modest employee of the Lanson firm. The vineyard has described him as a modest employee, who brought the Collection to the attention of the company not knowing that he would be entitled to half of the proceeds under French law. According to the vineyard, this anonymous individual will now be able to buy or build a house for his family with the auction proceeds.