Piano tuner finds key to riches

A BRITISH school and a piano tuner are to share the reward after hundreds of gold and silver coins from the Victorian era — worth as much as £500 000 (about R8.4-million) — were found in a piano.

Bishops Castle Community College in Shropshire called in a piano technician to retune an upright piano that had just been donated to the school. Martin Rickhouse, finding the keys a bit stiff, removed them to find the coins stitched into seven cloth-wrapped parcels and a leather drawstring purse.

The British Museum said the hoard might have been in response to the Great Depression.