Hole in the Wall Yields Treasure

Sometimes DIY pays: drilling a hole in the wall of his home in south-west France, a builder stumbled across a hoard of rare gold and silver coins hidden there more than 500 years ago.

"I was making a hole for a new window when they just started to fall down around my head," the man, who has not been identified, told local papers yesterday. "They were a bit dull, so I didn't immediately realise what I'd found. Then I saw some at least were gold."

Experts who have examined the treasure, whose discovery in May 2004 was kept secret, said it contained 1,010 coins: 157 in gold, 300 in silver and the remainder in billon, a silver and copper alloy popular in the middle ages.

"It's a spectacular find," said Robert Juge, an auctioneer, who is putting the hoard under the hammer in Angouleme at the end of the month, where it should fetch more than €500,000 (£344,000).

The coins were minted in Spain, Portugal, Italy, England, the Netherlands and various French duchies. The most recent was struck in 1483, while the oldest is a King Jean II franc, the first franc minted, from 1360. The rarest is a castellano from the time of Henry IV of Castille, of which only one other example is known to exist. Bazas, where the coins were found, was a regional centre in the middle ages.