It started with a gold rush, and now a Dudley jewellers’ is offering top prices for old English silver coins.

Rex Johnson & Son in Birdcage Walk is calling for people to dig out money from decades gone by and cash them in for what could add up to hundreds of pounds.

The shop has had queues outside for the last 12 weeks, with people bringing in their old gold chains and watches while the price of gold soars. Now silver is also enjoying a boom, and owner Mr David Johnson is calling on residents to make the most of it and bring in any old coins that have been gathering dust in the bottom of the drawer.

He said: “The coins have been coming in by the bucketloads. We are looking for anything from the half-crown, sixpences, shillings, silver threepenny bits like they used to put in the Xmas puddings, two-shilling pieces, or a crown. “We are giving ten times face value for coins pre-1947, so every pound gets ten pounds, and pre-1920 we will give twenty times the original value.

“We have had a huge response, particularly from the older generation who have had them in their bottom drawers all these years.”

Mr Johnson said the biggest exchange was a woman who brought in her collection of coins and left with £800.

He added : “People are quite shocked; they bring in their little packet of coins and go home with over £100.

“People have been distracted by the price of gold, but the silver has also been holding a high value as well over this period and, since people have begun realising this, the queues have been doubling outside the shop.”

Rex Johnson says it continues to offer top prices for silver and gold at both its Dudley shop and its Birmingham base in Corporation Street, Monday to Saturday.

The jewellers are also still on the lookout for gold, the price of which is still soaring.

Typical items brought in for valuation and sale included medallion chains, popular in the 1980s but which have now fallen out of fashion, and even sovereign rings – a must-have for young men five-years ago.

Mr Johnson said: “It is mainly things they don’t wear anymore or that are broken.”

Today’s gold prices were £130 per ounce for nine-carat, £260 per ounce of 18-carat and £317 per ounce of 22-carat.