IT’S amazing what you find when you have a clear out.

Amid the sale of Crichel House, near Wimborne, a collection of farthings which were kept at the stately home for 123 years has been sold at auction for £63,440.

The Victorian farthings were handed over by a sore loser who bet £5 on the wrong raindrop getting to the bottom of a window pane first, back on a wet Dorset day in 1890.

Instead of handing over a crisp £5 note the annoyed loser fled to the bank to withdraw the prize money in 4,800 brand new farthings.

The bag of coins was stashed away by the winning member of the Alington family. The family owned the house for 300 years until it was sold to American billionaire Richard L Chilton this year.

A total of 2,794 of the bronze coins remained – adding up to £2, 18 shillings, one pence and two farthings, worth £220 today.

An estimate of £14,000 – £18,000 was put on the cache at Woolley and Wallis auctioneers in Salisbury before they were sold for £63,440, including the buyer’s premium, to Knightsbridge Coins at St. James, London, on behalf of their client.

Lucy Chalmers, left, a valuer at Woolley & Wallis, said it is almost unheard of to have this number of mint condition farthings together. “It is rare to have such a good story behind them,” she said.

“The story of the bet is stuff of family legend and has been passed down through generations of the Alington family although sadly no-one knows who the bet was between – but the loser was so upset he marched straight to the bank and withdrew the five pounds in the smallest change he could.”

The farthing went out of circulation in 1960.