Kitchen renovation made Brits £60,000 richer (8 photos)

Robert Fuchs and his wife Betty found more than 1,000 17th-century gold and silver coins while renovating the kitchen of their Dorset home. They sold the treasure at auction for £60,740.





Robert and Betty found the coins when they began removing the floor to increase the height of the kitchen.



Robert and Betty Fuchs

"This house is 400 years old, so it was a lot of work," says Betty. We took all the siding off and went back to the stone walls. We decided to raise the ceiling height by lowering the floor."

Using a pickaxe, Robert, an agricultural engineer, unearthed a broken bowl of coins at a depth of about 50 cm.





"It's incredible and amazing. I think they were hidden during the English Civil War," added the 43-year-old nurse.

The treasure was sent to the British Museum for inspection and cleaning, and the sale was handled by Duke's Auctioneers.



According to experts, the treasure was buried in 1642

A 1636 Charles I gold coin sold for £5,000 and a 1621 James I coin fetched £2,700. Other examples date from the reigns of Elizabeth I, Philip and Mary.



The lots sold for almost double what Duke's auctioneers had expected.



A total of 1029 coins were found



The house of Robert and Betty Fuchs (right) is located in a small village in West Dorset



Gold coin of Charles I