Gold Coins Found In French Attic Worth Nearly $1 million

Money doesn't grow on trees, but apparently it does sometimes fall from the ceiling.

According to the Guardian, builders working to renovate a building at a former French winery were suddenly showered with hundreds of gold coins as they broke through old layers of plaster.

The discovery was made in an old grape-drying facility that had been converted to housing for seasonal workers.

According to the report, builders found 497 coins, likely produced between 1851 and 1928.

The building's current owner told the paper the coins might have been stored in the attic at some point in the 1930s, during which time the winery may have traded with Prohibition-era smugglers.

Altogether, the recovered coins are said to be worth around $980,000, according to the Agence France-Presse.

Half of the money will go to the workers, while the building's owner will keep the other half, AFP reported.

NBC Chicago jokes that the workers who made the valuable discovery turned the champagne house's ceiling into "possibly the world's most lucrative pinata"