This is what happened when someone left 15,000 2p coins on a canal towpath in London

What would you do if you found a pile of 15,000 2p coins going spare on a canal towpath? Too bizarre a situation to contemplate? Well, an Airbnb host and his guest decided to do exactly that and then record the reactions of passers-by who came across the pile of copper treasure.

Jamahl McMurran and photographer Lana Mesic left a mound of coppers worth £300 on the towpath of Regent’s Canal near Kingsland Street this morning, in what they’ve dubbed the #coinsbythecanal experiment. One cyclist started channelling Richie Rich by picking handfuls of coppers up and tossing them over his head. Other people tried to pick up as many of the coins as they could but had to stop because of their weight. Poor effort, guys. And a group of children were content to just play in them. Aww.

Lana, an artist based in the Netherlands, was lumbered with the coins after using them for an installation and, after struggling to fit them into her hand luggage, decided to put them by the canal for a ‘joke’ and film the reactions from Jamahl’s flat, who told the Evening Standard: ‘It was completely spontaneous and we had no idea what would happen. Some of the footage is absolutely hilarious; that one guy who stood in the coins is magical.’

However, the entertainment soon came to end when a man and his friend gathered up all of the coins and carried the copper loot away into the sunset – there’s always one who has to spoil the fun, eh?