Hearts of pure gold
Couple give away piano, then coin hoard is found inside so they miss out on £500k reward – and they don’t mind a bit!
IF there was a £500,000 fortune stashed inside a piano you had owned for 33 years, you’d probably feel entitled to a slice of its riches. But Graham and Meg Hemmings reacted very graciously despite not getting a penny for a hoard of valuable gold coins discovered in their old piano.
Having recently donated the instrument to a local college, the couple have made no attempt to profit from the fortune and said they were just happy others would benefit from it.
The coins were discovered by a piano tuner at the college after it was donated last November.
Stashed under the keyboard, there were 913 gold sovereigns and half sovereigns dating from between 1847 and 1915 – during the reigns of Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V.
The coins had been carefully stitched into seven cloth-bound packets and a single leather drawstring purse, and amount to more than 13lb (6kg) of gold.
A coroner appealed for the owner of the coins – or their heirs – to come for- ward in January. But after no legitimate owner was found, an inquest in Shrewsbury yesterday concluded the coins qualified as ‘treasure’.
A national or local museum can acquire treasure finds for public benefit. A British Museum official said the finder and landowner – the piano tuner and the college – would share a reward equivalent to the valuation by its Treasure Valuation Committee.
If the hoard reaches its expected value of £500,000 this would see the piano tuner and college receive £250,000 each. But Mr and Mrs Hemmings do not seem bitter about missing out on the lucrative pay out.
The second hand piano had been used to teach the couple’s four children to play while they were growing up.
But after the youngsters left home the Hemmings donated the piano to Bishop’s Castle Community College in Shropshire last year near to where they lived.
Mr Hemmings, 72, a retired finance director, said: ‘We’re very glad that the college will benefit. We knew the piano needed tuning when we moved it to Bishop’s Castle but it played well.
‘There was absolutely no hint that there was anything in there.’ Mrs Hemmings, 65, a former nursery teacher, said her only regret was that the piano’s life prior to her family’s ownership has remained a mystery. The international appeal in January failed to shed light on the piano’s movements between its sale by manufacturer Broadwood and Sons of London to two musical instrument traders in Saffron Walden, Essex, in 1907 and its purchase at a music shop in the town by the Hemmings in 1983. The piano tuner, Martin Back- house, 61, spoke about discovering the money.
He said: ‘I had only taken out the first octave when I realised something was going on.
‘I thought “I am going to have to open up one of those packages to see what it is”. There was no way I was expecting any gold. I opened up one of the packets and did a double take.’ Mr Backhouse informed the college headmaster of his discovery and they immediately followed protocol and contacted the coroner.
Peter Reavill, Shropshire finds liaison officer for the British Museum, said in 1926 the coins would have been worth £773, which was well above the average £619 cost of a house at the time. Sover-
‘We’re glad the college will benefit’ ‘The best detective fiction out there’
eigns were circulated as part of Britain’s Gold Standard currency up until its abolition in 1932.
Mr Reavill said the Shropshire coins had a purity value of 91 per cent. While the coins were not particularly rare – with 60,000 produced in 1912 alone – he said the investigation into the piano had rivalled ‘the best detective fiction out there.’
Saffron Walden Museum is said to have already expressed an interest in securing the coins for its own collection. Once a museum agrees to take a treasure find, it usually has to pay the agreed valuation fee within four months. Upon receipt of that, the reward is paid to the interested parties.