John Rolfe had no expectations of finding anything valuable when he arrived at a ramshackle two-up, two-down cottage tucked away in a remote West Country valley.

But as the auctioneer began to explore by the light of his mobile phone torch the glint of gold caught his eye. Rolfe began to turn out drawers and cupboards and found them full of valuablecoins.

"It was mind-blowing. I felt like a pirate in a grotto," he said. "There was a coin here, a coin there. If I opened a drawer there were more coins." He even found a coin among sugar cubes in abowl.

The most valuable lot was No 210, a 1937 specimen coin set comprising a £5 coin and sovereigns in a Morocco leather case, which sold for £8,000.

There were also coins commemorating royal occasions and historical events and figures, celebrating great artists and marking sporting events.

"When you get a call like that and hear about coins you think it's going to be a few coppers and maybe a Georgian halfpenny. If you're lucky you'll find £20- or £30-worth. I thought it was goingto be as dull as dishwater."

Rolfe drove out to the cottage on a rainy day. "There was flooding and the van only just made it there. It had steam coming out of the bonnet.," he said.

"The cottage was in the middle of nowhere. To say the place was ramshackle doesn't quite cover it. It was damp, rat-infested. There was an old car on the drive that looked as if it had never beenmoved.

"The gentleman was a hoarder. We go into an lot of properties but I've never seen anything like it. You could barely get through the front door. We couldn't turn the lights on. There were boxesand boxes of paperwork floor to ceiling in every room."

But then he saw the glinting.

"Almost every coin was in mint condition still stored in its original plastic with its receipt. I got a team down to clear the property. That was no mean feat. A normal house clearance will take aday or two. This took three weeks of four men every day."

To read the complete article, see:
'I felt like a pirate in a grotto': gold coins found inhoarder's cottage fetch £80,000 (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/05/gold-coins-found-in-hoarder-cottage-fetch-pounds-80000-auction-stroud)