After the death of Danish butter tycoon Lars Emil Bruun, he left his descendants with an inheritance worth $72 million, which makes people envy the family for having a good baby.
(Lars Emile Brunn)
But on the other hand, it's really not easy to get.
His children and grandchildren waited 100 years to get this rich inheritance......
Bruun was born in a small Danish town called Haudrup.
Brune was a visionary, saving money as a boy by apprenticeing a businessman, then went to business school, and after graduating, he began working for a number of large corporations.
By 1883, Brunn had set up his own company, specializing in the packaging and wholesale of butter, and as the business grew, Brunn became a well-known butter tycoon in Denmark.
Brune also has a hobby, and he has loved collecting coins since he was a child.
As his wealth grew, so did his range of coins.
Denmark, Sweden, Norway......
Brunn collects coins from these countries, and even some of the regions that were once ruled by these three countries are in Brunn's collection, such as the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands), the Tranqual (now the U.S. Virgin Islands), and the current Tarangambadi (which was once a Danish outpost in India).
By the time of his death, Bruen had become one of the largest coin collectors in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
According to statistics, Brunn has a total of about 20,000 objects, including about 15,000 coins, 4,600 medals and tokens, 330 banknotes, and about 1,800 books.
(Brune with his collection)
But Brune made a decision before he died, he didn't want to pass on the wealth to his children and grandchildren soon......
Because in 1914, the First World War broke out.
Seeing the destructive power of the war, Bruen was deeply disturbed by the preservation of Danish cultural heritage, so he decided to use his collection as a "backup" of the Danish national collection.
Before his death, he made a will, stipulating that for 100 years after his death, if the collection of the National Museum of Denmark remained intact, he would sell his inheritance at auction and give the proceeds to his heirs;
But if Denmark loses its artefacts, he uses his collection to fill the gap.
Therefore, for these 100 years, Danish scholars are free to observe and borrow his inheritance as long as they have a valid reason, and only his children and grandchildren cannot touch it.
Unfortunately, the selfless Brune died on November 21, 1923......
(Elder Brune)
At the time, it was considered to be a "handover to the state", because no one knew that a fire, war, or other accident would lead to the loss of the National Museum's collections, and that their children and grandchildren would not be able to get anything at that time.
Fortunately, Denmark is still quite competitive and has spent a hundred years safely.
However, this did not dispel the resentment of the children and grandchildren.
The reason is very simple, this heritage cannot be seen or touched, and whoever sees it is anxious.
Especially after a hundred years, many children and grandchildren have become ordinary people, and they have no savings in their hands, so they naturally focus on the treasures left by their ancestors.
(Schematic diagram)
Great-grandson Hans Henrik Bruun is one of them.
His family is a bloodline of "the middle of the family", and his father has been reduced to renting out to support the family.
Hans had openly questioned his ancestor's decision in the media, saying that he would be 64 years old when he received the inheritance, and he had no opinion, but he did not want to know so early that he had such an invisible property.
He gave an example:
Knowing that you have a huge inheritance to inherit is similar to winning the lottery.
When someone wins the lottery, they either move into a new house or buy a new car.
And he already knew that he had won the lottery, but he could only live in such a dilapidated house, and his biggest wish now was to have money to buy a new set of golf clubs.
He and his father tried to find a lawyer to change the will, but the lawyer advised them to be patient as heirs, and in the end they didn't get a penny......
In 2009, Hans's father died in poverty before he could wait for the inheritance, but Hans was lucky enough to hold on to it until now, and together with 11 other people, he was ready to divide the huge inheritance.
(Brune and His Treasure)
According to the auction house's statistics, considering the quantity and quality of the collection, the estate is worth about 72 million US dollars (about 521 million yuan).
In recent years, the trading prices of coins and medals have fluctuated very much.
In 2021, Sotheby's sold a coin for $18.9 million, and earlier this month, another auction house sold a bronze medal from the Inter-American Commission for $900,000.
Brunn's 20,000 pieces of collection won't all be worth a lot, but there will always be some that are important for a specific group of people.
In the autumn of this year, Brunn's first collection will be auctioned.
Until then, his heirs could only pray that the auction price would be higher, and that they would live longer......