Coins dug up in an English south-coast garden have been auctioned in Switzerland for over £380,000.
The New Forest Hoard was sold by David Guests Numismatics in association with Numismatica Ars Classica in Zurich on November 6.
With Mr Guest wielding the hammer, the coins reached a final price of 403,100 Swiss francs (£384,489 or $504,168 at current exchange rates).
The hoard’s discovery was the result of COVID-lockdown maintenance in a Hampshire garden.
A couple, who have not been named, uncovered 63 gold and one silver coin at their property in Milford-on-Sea, between the New Forest and the Solent in Hampshire.
The April 2020 find was classified as treasure in October 2021, giving it legal protection that seeks to keep important historical finds in public collections.
The most valuable single item in the sale was this beautiful Henry VIII crown of the double rose from 1536-1537. It sold for 18,000 Swiss francs, over £17,000, more than three times its pre-sale estimate. Image courtesy David Guest Numismatics/NAC.
Subsequent archaeology brought the total of coins in the hoard to 70. No museum buyer was found.
The coins date from the 1420s to 1537. They were minted from the end Lancastrian dynasty under Henry VI to the Tudor monarchy of Henry VIII.
The hoard contained examples of the principal British coins of each period found within it. All were in good condition.
There is a mixture of denominations (though coins of this age come in many fewer varieties than modern money) with a face value of £26 5 shillings and 5 ½ pence.
Their equivalent current value is as little as £23,000. But when it was buried this was a substantial fortune with a probable purchasing power of over £500,000 in today’s money.
Experts believe the New Forest Hoard represented a family’s savings and was buried to keep it safe from political turbulence around the dissolution of the monasteries after Henry VIII’s break with Catholicism in 1533.
They were expected to sell for £230,000, but returned well over that. After 500 years the hoard has been broken up, with coins being sold in small, themed groups.
Mr Guest told the BBC: “[they were sold to] bidders from all over the world and exceeded my expectations.”
The Chew Valley Hoard of 2,584 Norman Conquest-era silver pennies was sold in 2024 for £4.3 million to become the most valuable British hoard.
