"We never would have thought it would happen": an incredible collection of gold coins up for auction at Drouot

A collection of a thousand gold coins from all ages, worth an estimated two million euros, will be auctioned on Tuesday and Wednesday in Paris after being discovered at the home of a deceased numismatist in Lot-et-Garonne.

Known only to a few professionals, Paul Narce (1934-2024) lived in a house in Castillonnès, a village located in the north of the department, devoting his savings to purchasing coins.

Over the years, he has built up a collection that is "exceptional both in terms of its size and the rarities it contains," emphasizes expert Thierry Parsy in the presentation document for the upcoming sale, under the hammer of Beaussant Lefèvre, at the Hôtel Drouot.

However, this numismatic treasure could have remained unknown forever, as the newspaper Le Figaro revealed at the end of May.

Paul Narce, who ended his days in a retirement home without a direct heir, had kept the family home. Unoccupied since his departure, it appeared to constitute the bulk of the estate for distant cousins ​​located by the notary through a genealogy firm.

"It was then, thanks to the tips of a few people who had heard about it, that the existence of this collection was revealed," says the expert. All that remained was to find it...

"Patient research" led to the discovery, in a storage room littered with fishing rods and gardening tools, of a chest sealed behind an ordinary canvas painting. It contained the treasure: the carefully labeled coins and, in addition, ten cloth pouches, each containing 172 20-franc gold coins, the equivalent of one ingot!

The collection covers all periods: it begins with Greece, Byzantium and the Gauls, continuing with Merovingian and provincial coins, notably from Flanders and Aquitaine, including seven coins of the Black Prince.

It also includes "masterpieces of Gothic art", including "a superb gold Parisis" from the reign of Philip VI of Valois, and royal coins from Louis XIII to Louis XVI, including 24 gold livres from the constitutional period minted after his death in 1793.

Another rarity, Paul Narce owned a five-franc gold coin minted in only 40 copies for the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris.

"They were very polite and modest people who lived in an ordinary house, a few steps from the town hall. We would never have thought that," the village mayor, Pierre Sicaud, told the newspaper Sud Ouest.