Man Collects Pennies For Over 45 Years, Bank Tellers Stunned By Total Value

May 07, 2019 by apost team

An elderly man is making headlines for the total value of his coin collection.

Otha Anders started collecting pennies in the late 1960s. Not only did he save his own change after a shopping trip, but he also looked for dropped pennies on the sidewalk or lost pennies under couch cushions. He saw it as a way to be grateful for the little things.

"If I would see a penny when on the ground, in the hallway, on the floor, or anywhere, I would automatically invariably a prayer of thanks and I'd say, well this is God's way of reminding me that I should always be thankful," he told reporters. 

There was a strange sort of discipline to the practice. Anders refused to spend the pennies even when it would've been convenient.

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"I have not spent a penny in 40 plus years," he said. "I would break a dollar before I would spend a penny."

Eventually, Anders's collection grew so large that it required dozens of clear plastic water jugs. He kept them in the backyard. They were filled to the brim with copper pennies spanning the decades.

In 2018, Anders decided that it was finally time to cash in his collection. He was 73 years old, and he'd been hoarding pennies for more than half of his life. He wanted to see the fruits of his labor.

The first step was actually getting the pennies to the bank. They were in portable five-gallon jugs, but they were extremely heavy, so Anders wound up putting them on carts and wheeling them to a truck. Several friends and family members assisted with the task.

When they got to the bank, the tellers couldn't believe their eyes. There were almost too many pennies to be believed! The collection was so huge that it even caused an error message in their digitized coin-sorting machine.

At the end of the day, however, Anders got paid for his pennies. His total was revealed to be a whopping $5,136. He'd amassed more than 500,000 pennies all together, and they weighed more than 2,800 pounds.

Anders thinks that he might spend the money on a recent dental bill.

Watch his story in the video below:

Are you amazed? Could you have the discipline to collect coins for almost 50 years? Let us know in the comments and don't forget to show this story to your friends!