A $100 Million Coin Collection Resurfaces After Decades, Bound for Auction

The 15,000-strong collection will be sold over several years.

Una and the Lion, a coin struck during the reign of Victoria from the Traveller Collection. Photo: Numismatica Ars Classica.

by Richard WhiddingtonMarch 28, 2025 Share This Article

One of the most valuable coin collections ever assembled is coming to market—and it has a story to match its lofty price tag.

For starters, there’s the element of mystery: the inheritor of this 15,000-strong collection that has been insured at more than $100 million has chosen to remain anonymous. What is clear, as offered by the consignee Numismatica Ars Classica, is that in the 1930s, the heir to a European family business became very obsessed with coins.

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The Wall Street Crash of 1929 was the trigger, pushing the young man to seek out alternate avenues for storing wealth. First came gold bullion, then coins. Freed from the day-to-day operations of the family business, the collector spent the 1930s hopscotching across Europe and the Americas with his new wife acquiring rare coins along the way. The coin firm calls the period “an extended honeymoon” and has labelled the assembly the Traveller Collection.

But for more than half a century, the Traveller Collection went nowhere at all. During World War II, the collector became fearful and decided to enclose his gold and silver coins in cigar boxes and bury them in his garden. When the German forces indeed invade, he died shortly thereafter. Only his wife knew the collection’s location and she chose to keep it a secret until the mid-1990s.

A 70 ducat coin of the Polish king Sigismund III. Photo: courtesy Numismatica Ars Classica.

Now, nearly a century on from the Traveller Collection’s beginning, Numismatica Ars Classica is set to sell off the coins in a series of 15 auctions spanning three years. “[It’s] a landmark in the history of numismatics,” said Arturo Russo, the coin firm’s director. “The catalogues of the Traveller Collection will serve as an important reference for the future collectors and scholars.”

The first sale, on May 20, will focus on 200 of the collection’s British coins and medallions. This spans the first machine-struck coins of Charles II’s reign in the 17th-century through to a set created for the coronation of George VI in 1937. One highlight is the Una and the Lion, a £5 gold coin that was designed by the master coin-maker William Wyon in 1839. Drawing from The Faerie Queene (1590) an epic poem by Edmund Spenser, the reverse depicts a young and fair Queen Victoria walking alongside a lion. It’s estimated to sell for 250,000 CHF ($284,000).

An Athens gold stater, struck in 296 BC by the tyrant Lachares. Photo: courtesy Numismatica Ars Classica.

As the initial listings show, the collector boasted an omnivorous appetite. There’s an Athens gold stater struck in 296 B.C.E by Lachares to pay his troops as the city was being besieged by Demetrius, the king of Macedonia. Greek city states typically used silver for coins and the story goes that Lachares stripped the statue of the goddess Athena to strike the coins—it was in vain: Demetrius took Athens in 294 B.C.E. It’s estimated at 125,000 CHF ($142,000).

The one Ounce Port Phillip Coin from the Traveller Collection. Photo: courtesy Numismatica Ars Classica.

Elsewhere there’s a 70 ducat coin from 1621 of the Polish king Sigismund III Vasa, who imposed Catholicism across his territory and transferred the capital from Kraków to Warsaw. A 100-ducat coin of the king, also minted in 1621, sold for $2.2 million in 2018, a record for a Polish coin. Numismatica Ars Classica is offering an estimate of CHF 450,000 ($511,000). The Australian Port Philip coin, which features a kangaroo and stems from one of the country’s earliest mints, is estimated at 250,000 CHF ($284,000)

One of the rarest offerings is a set of five tomans, an old Persian monetary unit. It was minted at the turn of the 19th-century and only five complete sets are known to exist. It has been estimated at 2 million CHF ($2.3 million).

Ahead of the sale of British coins, David Guest, an expert brought in to consult on the sale, said the Traveller Collection was unrivaled. “Many of the coins were of types not known to have been offered for sale in over 80 years and, in some cases, completely unrecorded.”

$160 Million Gold Treasure Found After 50 Years Underground

Jimmy Adeel • Published March 28, 2025

• 15,000 rare coins from over 100 regions unearthed after being hidden from Nazis.
• Collection includes massive 348.5-gram gold coin worth $1.35 million USD.
• First auction of historic collection scheduled for May 2025.

Sometimes treasures are hiding in plain sight — like the guy who accidentally threw $750 million USD worth of Bitcoin into the trash or the lucky person who bought a $50 USD garage sale painting, only to find out it was worth $15 million USD. Now, another such discovery is making headlines: the ‘Traveller Collection,’ which is a stash of rare coins that were buried underground for over 50 years and are finally seeing the light of day through an auction.

This numismatic goldmine is worth more than $100 million USD (~$160 million AUD) and is the most valuable collection ever to be put up for auction. The first sale is schedule for May 20, 2025 and will be conducted by Numismatica Ars Classica (NAC), marking a historic moment in the world of high-stakes coin collecting.

A Collection Born from Crisis and Adventure

The story behind the Traveller Collection seems straight out of a movie. It all began in the aftermath of the 1929 Wall Street Crash, when a European collector and his wife went on an ambitious quest to get the rarest, most historically significant coins across the Americas and Europe. Piece by piece, they built an extraordinary portfolio and carefully documented each acquisition along the way which has provided an invaluable record of each piece’s origin.

The $100 million USD ‘Traveller Collection’ of rare coins will be auctioned starting May 2025. Image: Flint Culture

Then came World War II. As the Nazis advanced across Europe, the collector faced a painful decision. Rather than risk losing his life’s work, he chose to bury the entire collection underground and sealed the coins in cigar boxes and aluminium containers before vanishing into history.
For over five decades, the collection remained untouched but recently the heirs of the original collector retrieved the long-lost treasure and brought one of the greatest numismatic stories ever told full circle. Arturo Russo, director of NAC, stated about the coins:

 “This is the most valuable numismatic collection ever to come to auction in its entirety. The vast range and superb quality of the coins offered, the sheer number of great rarities, and the fascinating story of the collection’s formation will make these sales a landmark in the history of numismatics.”

An Unprecedented Numismatic Legacy

The collection includes many significant coins including a 100 Ducat Gold Coin of Ferdinand III of Habsburg (1629), which weighs 348.5 grams of fine gold, representing one of the largest European gold coins ever made and is expected to sell for around $1.35 million USD. Another standout piece of the collection is the 70 Ducat Coin of Polish King Sigismund III (1621), which tips the scales at 243 grams and is estimated to have a worth of $471,700 US

The Traveller Collection includes rare coins like the $1.35 million USD 100 Ducat Gold Coin of Ferdinand III. Image: Flint Culture

Many of these coins haven’t been available for purchase in over 80 years and some have never even been documented in numismatic records. Because of this, the first auction in May will be monumental and will focus on British machine-struck coins from Charles II to George VI, with a full display at NAC’s London office throughout April.

The three-year auction series is set to be a surreal moment for both historians and collectors because these coins are more than a collection of gold and silver — they represent a story and an unbreakable connection to the past.

Coin collection with extraordinary story heading to auction and could fetch $100m after being buried for 50 years

A coin collection that spent 50 years buried underground is set to become the most expensive numismatic coin collection ever brought to auction in its entirety.

The so-called ‘Traveller’ collection has an insurance value in excess of $100million, with the coins set to go to auction over the next three years.

After the collector died during Nazi occupation, the coins remained buried for more than 50 years before they were eventually retrieved by the collectors’ descendants and stored in a bank vault.

The extensive cataloguing by the collector, and the coins’ meticulous storage, means that the coins are ‘in a state of preservation never seen in modern times,’ according to Numismatica Ars Classica.

In fact, many of the coin types heading to auction have never before been offered at a public auction.

The prize piece of the collection is a 100 ducats coin minted in 1629, during the reign of Ferdinand III, archduke of Austria, king of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia.

The fine gold coin, weighing 348.5g is one of the largest denominations of European gold coins ever minted and has not been seen at auction after the second world war.

Numismatica Ars Classica expects the coin could sell for an eye-watering £1.05million at auction.

The first coins set to head to auction are British machine-struck pieces from Charles II’s reign up to a specimen set minted for George VI in 1937

Ancient: The oldest coin, an Athens gold stater from 296BC has an estimated value of £109,515.

The series consists of a 50 Toman coins minted in Persia, weighing just over 400g of gold

This Australian Port Phillip coin, minted by the ‘Kangaroo Office’, one of the earliest mints created to establish an Australian currency, could be worth over £200,000

A 1621 70 ducats coin of Sigismund III of Poland is estimated to fetch £394,260, while a five guinea of George III from 1777 is estimated to sell for £262,900.

Meanwhile, the oldest coin, an Athens gold stater from 296BC has an estimated value of £109,515.The first coins set to head to auction are British machine-struck pieces from Charles II’s reign up to a specimen set minted for George VI in 1937.