Cache of gold coins, other treasures found by hikers in Czech forest

The cache of antique gold and other treasures is worth almost half a million dollars.

A quiet trek through an overgrown forest quickly turned into the discovery of a lifetime when hikers in the Czech Republic found a cache of antique gold and other treasures worth almost half a million dollars.

The hikers stumbled across the lucrative loose change and jewels earlier this year while hiking in the Podkrkonosí Mountains, according to a Facebook post from the museum now in possession of the items.

A small aluminum can and iron box concealed the true treasure, but after the hikers took a peek inside the vessels, they knew they had discovered something special.

Inside the dirty and corroding containers were 598 gold coins wrapped in black fabric, 10 metal bracelets, 16 metal snuff boxes, a comb, a chain, a wire bag and a powder compact.

Local media reported that the coins alone are valued at 7.5 million Czech crowns, which is about C$470,00.

The coins appear to have been “hidden in the ground for over a hundred years,” according to Novak, and are dated from 1808 to the early 19th century.

The historical value of the treasure is priceless, he said.

In the Facebook post, Novak says valuable objects were often buried for safekeeping, with the owners intending to come back to them. In this case, however, there are theories that they might have been hidden amid Nazi Germany’s annexation of the region in the 1930s, or were perhaps hidden by Nazis themselves, toward the end of the Second World War.