Man pays £25 for box of medals; rare Captain Cook find sells for £5,000

A man who bought a box of 22 old medals for just £25 at a car-boot sale in West Yorkshire discovered that one was a rare 18th-century medal commemorating Captain James Cook’s death in 1779. After selling the other medals for £500, he took the rare piece to an auction house, where it later fetched £5,000. The medal was purchased by the Captain Cook Memorial Museum in Whitby for a special exhibition planned for 2028.