The discovery is one of the largest hoards of 18th-century English gold coins ever uncovered in Britain, according to auction house Spink & Son in a press release sent to CNN on Thursday. While renovating their kitchen in July 2019, the residents discovered a clay bowl containing glass salt, burrowed under the concrete and floorboards of their home in Ellerby, North Yorkshire. The cup, described as no bigger than a soda can, contained more than 260 gold coins dating from 1610 to 1727. The stash of coins has an estimated value of 100,000 pounds (US$116,000) at today’s spending power, the officials said. auctions. Gregory Edmund, auctioneer at Spink & Son, said the remarkable hoard was unlike any find in British archeology or any coin auction in living memory. “This is a wonderful and truly unexpected discovery from such an unassuming find site,” Edmund said in the press release. “This find of more than 260 coins is also one of the largest in the archaeological record from Britain, and certainly for the 18th century period,” he added. “The coins almost certainly belonged to the Fernley-Maisters, Joseph and Sarah who were married in 1694,” the press release states. According to Spink & Son, the Maisters were an influential merchant family from the 16th century to the 18th century. They traded iron ore, timber, and coal from the Baltic states, and several generations held positions as legislators in the early 1700s. Their family line declined soon after the couple’s death, which is probably why the coins were never recovered, the auction house added. Meanwhile, Edmund said the findings reflect the £50 and £100 coins used at the time. “Joseph and Sarah clearly distrusted the fledgling Bank of England, the ‘banknote’ and even the gold coins of their day because (they chose) to keep so many coins dating from the English Civil War and before” , he added. “Why they never discovered the coins when they were so easy to find right under the original 18th century floorboards is an even bigger mystery, but it’s one hell of a piggy bank.”