Family Auctions Gold Their Children Found in Linen Cupboard

Like many people around the world, when news of the pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns spread, those that could do so headed to the countryside. This is an age old tactic for escaping plague and disease and for one family in Vendôme, France, the result has been for gold to literally drop into their hands.

The family traveled from their home in Paris to the patriarch’s ancestral home in Vendôme, a storied town situated on the Loir River about 2 hours southwest of the capital city.

The two sons of the anonymous family, both aged 10, were creating a makeshift play tent in the backyard when their father instructed them to get to some sheets which were being stored in a spare room. When they did so two gold bars fell out! At first they put them back and kept on playing, but later told their father about the discovery they had made.

When the family took the bars to the Rouillac Auctions they believed them to be knife holders and did not realize what they really were.

The family was able to locate the certificates from the bars at the time of their original purchase in 1967 by the boys’ grandmother, the person who had previously owned the house.

According to the paperwork each bar weighs 999 grams (or 2.2 pounds). Each have paperwork from the same assayer, Labratoires Boudet & Dussaix, though they bear some different mold markings between them. The bars are set to be sold on June 16th, 2020, for an estimated €40,000 ($43,800) each in an online auction held by Rouillac Auctions.

It’s fair to say that of all the things the family may have thought they’d experience in lockdown, finding gold was probably not among them. Kudos to grandma for keeping the gold bars so well hidden all those years.

The boys did not want to give up the gold bars, but leveraged their sale against the prospect of a having a pool installed. Perhaps shrewd financial bearings run in the family.