Overview

• A notary unearthed the collection in June 2025 behind a picture in a storage room wall of Paul Narce’s Castillonnès home after Narce died in 2024.
• The cache contained roughly 1,000 gold coins spanning from ancient Greece and Byzantium to 19th-century France, including medieval specimens from the Duchy of Aquitaine.
• Experts praised the collection’s quality and historical breadth, highlighting pieces such as Edward the Black Prince coins and Gothic-era masterpieces.
• Sold in separate lots at Drouot auction house in Paris, the coins brought in over €3 million, topping the €2 million estimate.
• Castillonnès residents described Narce and his sister Claudette as modest collectors who had no direct heirs, with distant cousins inheriting the trove.