The Passau State Library in Germany hit the news over the past couple of days for some very exciting news. A custodian at the Passau State Library, Tanja Hols, fond a box full of coins while working last week. It has been revealed that those coins could be worth millions of dollars and are actually thousands of years old.
“The box itself was fairly unspectacular, it looked like a big jewlery box, with lots of little drawers inside,” she told The Local.
Her bosses at the library were stunned when she told them. It is believed by the library that the coin collection belonged to local prince-bishops who decided to hide the coin collection in the library during the 19th century in an effort to avoid paying taxes on the collection. The coins are silver and gold and can be traced to ancient Rome, Greece, and the Byzantine empire, according to the Huffington Post.
Hols had walked past the box quite a few times before she dared to open the lid and see what was inside. For her actions and curiosity, Hols will be rewarded. A library spokesperson told reporters that “she was very honest, a brilliant historian and a great detective. We are certainly going to promote her to the curating side of the museum and we’re discussing a suitable reward for her.”
There were 172 coins in the box that date back thousands of years. Experts think that the coins date back to 1803, which was during the German secularization, when church assets were actually handed over to the state. The coins were forgotten for all these years because they were undervalued by previous library employees. Hols said that she normally visits the fourth floor archive often, to retrieve books for customers of the library.
The fourth floor archive also houses old furniture, a stuffed crocodile, and of course the coins. This is the most valuable item that the library has had come through its doors in history. The library is located in a Bavarian city, with the discovery being described as a ‘real bonanza.’ Initial reports claim that the coins could be worth millions of dollars while other reports claim that the coin collection could be worth at least six figures, according to the Daily Mail.
Hols is 43 years old and said that the box of coins had previously been dusted by various custodians employed by the library but absolutely no one knew of the box’s valuable contents until now. The administration at the library is preparing to promote Hols for her discovery and her honesty with the library regarding the coin collection.
“We are certainly going to promote her to the curating side of the museum and we’re discussing a suitable reward for her,” an administrator said.