Huge coin collection found hidden in house's walls sells for nearly $3.5 million
Auction house Beaussant Lefèvre and Associates told CNN on Thursday that all of the coins had sold in Paris this week, fetching more than 3 million euros ($3.48 million) in total.
The coins were collected by Paul Narce, who lived in a small village in south-west France until his death in 2024, according to Beaussant Lefèvre and Associates.
'Narce, who lived a modest life and didn't see a lot of the world, spent all of his money on his collection,' said coin expert Thierry Parsy in a statement previewing the sale.
Over the years, he built up a collection of gold coins 'exceptional both in number, with more than 1,000 pieces, as well as the rarities it contains,' said Parsy.
Many of the coins date back centuries, according to Parsy.
Among them are ancient coins from the Kingdom of Macedonia, dating to 336-323 BC, as well as almost complete series of coins used during the reigns of French Kings Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI.
Narce had no direct descendants and only a few people knew of his hobby.
However, no one knew where he kept his collection, which 'could have remained undiscovered forever,' said Parsy, were it not for a notary who set out to find the coins in the house, which had been empty since Narce moved into a care home a year before he died.
The notary eventually found the coins in a small space in the wall, hidden behind a painting in a store room.
In addition to the carefully labelled collection, the notary also found 10 packages, each containing 172 gold 20 franc coins, equivalent to an ingot of gold.
The final sale far exceeded the pre-auction estimate of 2 million euros ($2.43 million).
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
8 hours ago
- Business Insider
Why LVMH Stock (MC) Is Catching Wall Street's Attention
French luxury products company LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, or LVMH (FR:MC) (LVMUY), is drawing strong support from Wall Street as several analysts maintain their Buy ratings. The recent wave of bullish ratings came despite the company reporting a challenging Q2 for 2025. Year-to-date, MC stock has declined more than 25%, reflecting broader market pressures on the luxury sector. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. LVMH is a European fashion house known for its iconic luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Sephora, Fendi, Bulgari, and more. The company is primarily listed on the Euronext Paris exchange but also trades over-the-counter (OTC) in the U.S. LVMH Q2 2025 Results Overview In Q2, LVMH's core fashion and leather goods segment saw a sharp drop in sales, falling 9% year-over-year. The decline was larger than analyst expectations and marked the steepest drop among all of LVMH's business segments. This reflected continued weak demand for luxury products amid rising prices and economic uncertainty. Overall, LVMH's net profit dropped 22% year-over-year in the first half, while operating profit fell 15%. Looking ahead, the company warned that a full recovery will take time as it faces an industry-wide slowdown, with softer demand from Chinese shoppers and ongoing uncertainty among U.S. consumers. Wall Street Analysts Stay Bullish Despite the lackluster results, analysts have maintained their buy ratings on MC stock. Four-star-rated analyst Luca Solca at Bernstein reiterated his Buy rating on MC stock at a price target of €600, implying more than a 30% growth rate. Sola stated that the recent results showed effective cost control despite weak demand. He added that focus will now shift to how the company tackles its challenges and the potential impact on its business in the second half of the year. Likewise, RBC Capital's analyst Piral Dadhania maintained his Buy rating. He noted that while LVMH's recent underperformance presents a 'fairly attractive' risk/reward, it is supported by an expected near-term boost in Fashion & Leather Goods from easier comparisons. Is LVMH Stock a Good Buy? Overall, MC stock has received a Moderate Buy rating on TipRanks, backed by a total of 19 recommendations from analysts. It includes 10 Buys and nine Holds assigned in the last three months. The LVMH share price target is €565.14, which is 20% higher than the current trading level.
Politico
17 hours ago
- Politico
Putin got a warm Trump meeting. Europe is afraid Zelenskyy won't.
While publicly Europe and Ukraine have appeared upbeat, privately officials were wary of Putin's red carpet welcome back to the West, where he secured the veneer of global legitimacy without making the kind of gestures toward peace the U.S., Europe and Ukraine have sought. 'Worries have been there all the way this year, and yesterday's meeting did not really help,' a European official said. Trump's position on the war has yo-yoed in recent weeks. While he had for months blamed Ukraine for the conflict, he had been more critical of Putin and Russia in the lead-up to the summit. He even said Putin would face 'severe consequences,' if he did not agree to stop the war after Friday's gathering. But after several hours of meetings with Putin in Alaska, Trump backtracked on a demand for an immediate ceasefire, again said it would be up to Ukraine to end the fighting and advised Kyiv to 'take the deal,' without specifying what Putin had suggested. Trump said after the summit that he negotiated with Putin over land swaps but declined to provide more details. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. French President Emmanuel Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday will lead a teleconference among the 'coalition of the willing' — countries that have indicated they will provide troops and other support to Ukraine at the end of the war, according to a European official. Ahead of the summit, Trump said he supported some American role in providing security guarantees — some form of assurance or support from Washington to deter Russia from attacking again after a peace deal is agreed. Nordic and Baltic leaders welcomed those commitments again after Trump spoke with European officials late Friday. While Trump did much more than usual to consult with Europe in the lead-up to the summit with Putin and after, the frequent contact does not seem to have yielded tangible results. European officials are relieved that Trump did not agree to a deal with Putin but disappointed that the threat of steep secondary tariffs targeting third countries buying Russian oil was tabled. 'They want to try to influence the negotiation process as much as possible, because they know Trump really wants to do it this way, and they don't want to leave the initiative to Putin,' said Giuseppe Spatafora, a former NATO official who is now a research analyst at the EU Institute for Security Studies. 'In general, the Europeans talk much more often to Trump than during the first 100 days, which is good. They have influence. But it's limited.' Zelenskyy's last visit to the Oval Office in February quickly went off the rails when Vice President JD Vance and later Trump both lectured him for not being grateful enough for American support and overplaying what they said was a weak diplomatic position. Zelenskyy's decision to wear a black polo, black pants and boots rather than a suit further soured the atmosphere. But Trump and Zelenskyy have been on better terms in recent meetings, as Kyiv's allies sought to improve the relationship and Trump's frustration with Putin mounted.
CNBC
20 hours ago
- CNBC
41-year-old American lives on $3,633 a month in France: 'I wish I had the courage to move sooner'
When Adriel Sanders first visited Paris in 2017, she immediately felt at home, she says. "It instantly clicked. I was like, 'This is your home. This is where you're supposed to be in the world and this is where you will always be. I knew I had to move to Paris," Sanders tells CNBC Make It. Sanders returned to Paris several times while continuing to work as a general counsel for a publicly traded company in Washington, D.C. At the time, she was earning $286,656 a year and lived in a studio apartment where she paid approximately $3,000 a month in rent, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. "I didn't enjoy the work and the expectation to work all the time and I will probably be one of the only attorneys who says it, but I don't think it's that intellectually stimulating," Sanders says. "I was deeply and truly miserable at the very depths of my little heart and little soul. I knew that it was not sustainable." Three years after that initial trip to Paris, Sanders quit her job, broke her lease and started the process of obtaining a French visa. She landed in the city the day before France closed its borders due to the covid-19 pandemic. "The slowness of the world meant that France sped up. We were all operating from the same level of confusion, so the good thing is that I was confused by what was happening, but so was everyone else," Sanders says. "I arrived the day before the lockdown, so there was no one and it was a complete dystopia." When Sanders first moved, she lived in a few short-term rentals before signing a lease for a one-bedroom apartment. She paid 1,550 euros or $1,815 USD and lived in it for two years. Since moving out of that apartment, Sanders has been living in a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment where she pays $2,540 USD a month in rent. Since Sanders signed a lease for what is called an "unfurnished apartment," it meant that she had to spend money buying her own kitchen cabinets, stove and washing machine. She estimates that she spent about $5,000 on the kitchen and close to another $10,000 to make the place really feel like home. In addition to rent, Sanders spends, on average, about 933 euros or $1,093 USD on expenses, which include household bills like cable, internet, renter's insurance, dry cleaning, electricity and gas, private health insurance, groceries, and a Navigo transportation card. She also has an annual subscription to the Louvre, which costs 95 euros a year and a second museum card that can add an extra 50-100 euros a year to her expenses. Sanders also pays 1,069.20 euros, or approximately $1,252, annually to a guarantor service, which allows her to continue renting in France. Now that Sanders has been living in her apartment for over three years, she plans to revisit her search for a home to buy. She started looking two years ago, but stopped after touring many places that she felt were overpriced. "With the advice of friends who have recently purchased in Paris, I am determined again. Finding the right place will be a grind, but I am tired of renting in Paris," Sanders says. I desperately need more space and I want to get a dog." While Sanders wants to set down roots in Paris, she also hopes to eventually buy a home in the countryside too. "I don't think it would be nice to put a dog like a golden retriever in central Paris, where he doesn't have a backyard, so that is my dream," she says. Living in France has also inspired Sanders to finally pursue her real dreams of starting her own fashion brand, Adriel Felise. Sanders says she's taking $200,000 from her business account and $70,000 from her personal savings and putting that towards her new business venture. That money and her income from content creation is helping fund her dreams. "I love fashion and I'm so happy that I can now just say that and be upfront about it because for so long it was treated as something that made me less serious," she says. Sanders is self-funding the production of her initial samples and prototypes, but hopes to raise at least $2 million and have her 10-piece collection ready for launch in 2026. When Sanders was working as a lawyer, she used to take walks around her office building and dream about starting a fashion line, and now seeing it come to life still doesn't feel real. "There's still a part of me that strives and pushes for more so I don't know if I'm fully ready to say I'm proud but I feel like I'm actually happy, which I wasn't for so long and that's huge for me," she says. "My goal and desire is to inspire women — particularly black and brown women — to just pursue their dreams and goals. When they do it does not matter. The most important thing is that they be bold, move wisely, and just go for it." Since Sanders has been in France for about five years now, she says she doesn't think she'll ever go back to living in the United States. "I can't live there. I can't function like that. I can't go back to corporate America and holding my tongue every five seconds every day," she says. "I wish I had had the courage to move sooner. I wish I had the courage to do it after my first semester of law school to either drop out or enroll in business school and do something different that would have given me more options."
