How Much Is a Key That Locked Up Napoleon Worth? 

How valuable is a rusty, 5-inch antique steel key, found in an old trunk in a house in Scotland? Well, if it was the key to the room where an imprisoned Napoleon Bonaparte died in 1821, it would be worth slightly more than $112,000. That is how much it sold for at a Sotheby’s auction in Britain. The key was brought back to Britain by Charles Richard Fox, an army general and politician, who visited the island of Saint Helena while Napoleon was there. He is believed to have brought it as a gift for his mother who was a great admirer of Napoleon. The key was found by Fox’s descendants in a trunk in a house in Scotland.

Napoleon died on the remote island in the South Atlantic where Britain sent him after he escaped from Elba. The key came in an envelope labeled by Fox as “Key of the Room at St Helena, in which Napoleon died & which I got there out of the door in 1822…” He gives the exact date in an accompanying note as Sept. 6.

“The Key to Napoleon’s Room”
Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s via ArtDaily.