Anyone wishing to re-enact the favourite past time of Scrooge McDuck may soon get their chance, with a Swiss bank auctioning-off a pile of 8 million coins.

A huge century-old safe-deposit vault is going under the virtual hammer, which contains 8 million five centime coins; about 400,000 Swiss francs or $491,000 Australian dollars.

The coins were collected after they were dumped in front of the Swiss parliament by political campaigners. The demonstration saw one coin dropped for every Swiss citizen, in an effort to obtain a minimum monthly government stipend of 2,500 Swiss francs for each individual regardless of age and income.

The vault is in a former bank which now houses the political campaigners beind the original pile. The coins will go on sale via the Swedish online luxury clearing house JamesEdition, which links sellers and bidders for high-end purchases including private islands and jets.

The campaigners have launched the auction to drum-up some funds to support an upcoming referendum, which they triggered.

The group used the incredible ‘direct democracy’ of Switzerland for force the plebiscite on the national stipend, simply by obtaining enough signatures.

The reserve or expected sale price has not been announced, but the group thinks it will need quite a lot to push their idea in the lead up to the referendum.

“It's going to be an interesting campaign, and we'll need 10 million Swiss francs,” organiser Che Wagner said.

“But we're not doing this for the money.”

The handout scheme has been called impossibly far-fetched by some critics, while others believe it is a necessary experiment in new social formats. The group intends for the 200 billion Swiss francs per year the system would cost to be covered by adjustments to wages and taxes.