Otha Anders of Ruston, Louisiana, cashed in a quite a collection of pennies at his local bank earlier this week. After 45 years of saving the coins and storing them in five-gallon jugs, he wheeled his collection in on a dolly to see how much he had.
The News-Star reports that employees at Ruston Origin Bank were happy to help, as Anders has been a long-time customer. The contents of Anders’s 15 plastic containers were hacked open with an ax and a hammer, and took five hours to count. The final tally came to 513,614 pennies, for a deposit of $5,136.14.
Man cashes in pennies he’s been saving for 45 years -> https://t.co/9Lqz1mj8Af #KHOU pic.twitter.com/ZKSdGr4Gdl
— KHOU 11 News Houston (@KHOU) October 28, 2015
Anders, now 73 years old, began saving coins in the 1970s. “I became convinced that spotting a lost or dropped penny was an additional God-given incentive reminding me to always be thankful,” he said. As his collection grew, he eventually stopped spending pennies altogether, and requested pennies when receiving change after purchases. “I would never spend a penny,” he continued. “I would break a dollar before giving up a penny.”
After freeing the coins from their containers, bank employees poured them into buckets and loaded them through a counter into bags, before shipping the pennies off to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Anders was reluctant to let go of his pennies, but felt compelled to cash it in after his homeowner’s insurance company would not insure the collection. He remained proud of his accomplishment, saying, “I never allowed anyone, not even my wife nor children, to give me pennies without being compensated. I wanted the inner satisfaction that God and I acquired this collection.”
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Tom Thompson says
October 29, 2015 at 3:34 pm“before shipping the pennies off to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.”
Why would the FDIC want U.S. cents?
Silver Savior says
October 29, 2015 at 3:48 pmHe should have hung on to them. I am building a collection like this. But I separate the copper from the zinc. I would have bought them all off him. There were probably a lot of copper ones and rare cents in there. The pennies are actually worth a lot more than what the bank gave him.
I cringe even when people dump a load into coin star. I would have given them face value and a premium. Oh well can’t get it all I guess.
john f says
October 29, 2015 at 3:54 pmDon’t know what to think of this article, but some things don’t add up. “he wheeled his collection in on a dolly to see how much he had.” First off, the weight of that many coins? I collect pennies (Cents. I know) for the copper play. they consistently run 165 to the pound. So that means he had 3,113 pounds worth of pennies. He rolled them in on a dolly? If he can MOVE over 1 and a 1/2 TONS of coins on a dolly, he is a superman. It didn’t happen. Secondly, how did he GET them there? IN his car? Ahhh, not as easy as you think. My TRUCK says the payload in the back is 1 ton. I couldn’t even get them there in my truck, much less this old man getting them there in a car.
Then there is the loading OF that vehicle. Let’s assume he has a dually and could get that much on a truck. They say they were in “15 plastic containers”. that’s an average of 207 pounds per bag, if they all were exactly even in quantity. He lifted 15 bags of over 200 pounds each into his vehicle at home, and off again at the bank?
Last issue is volume. Both in the bags and in the vehicle. Each bag would have about 35,000 coins in them. I don’t know of bags that would HOLD that much. The bags on the coin counters at my bank hold $50 worth of pennies, and then the teller that changes out the bag struggles to pick up that bag. Imagine SEVEN of those bags? I know of NO ONE that could carry those bags, and NO bags that could support the weight. Then the physical volume. Have you ever stacked $25 penny boxes? I have. And it take SPACE. the SPACE of 205 of thee boxes is MUCH more than a vehicle OR a dolly could fit. I know his were in the bags (the 207 pound each bags) but it should be about the same physical volume either way.
No, this article sounds great, but something doesn’t add up here. A LOT of things don’t add up here.
And the guy is 73 years old! Slinging those 200 pound bags all over the place and pushing 3,113 pounds on a dolly. I:m calling something fishy on this.
Coin Update says
October 29, 2015 at 4:07 pm@John F. – For what it’s worth…from the original article, linked to above: “Five of Anders’ closest friends and family helped him and bank employees load the coins from the back of a pickup truck into the company’s coin room.” The containers he used were 5-gallon water jugs, as you might see on a large water cooler. – Dan
Silversnake89 says
October 29, 2015 at 6:15 pmHaha it hurts me to hear when people do that dumb stuff giving face value for something worth asset value aka Pre1982 pennies are at least .016 in copper value so with this logic his 500,000 bucket of pennies if all copper Pre 1982 pennies would be worth $8,000 vs $5136 that’s just for the copper no telling how much you could sell to collectors or wheat Pennies you can have made better profits I mean why do something if your not going to maximize ur return Dumb!!!! 🙂
paul says
October 30, 2015 at 11:47 amcollectors would have paid him 2 cents / penny
Marty Vornkahl says
October 30, 2015 at 6:17 pmWhat he did just doesn’t make…………………………………………
………………………………CENTS!
Ha!
* I couldn’t help it!
Gordon says
November 1, 2015 at 3:22 pm“after his homeowner’s insurance company would not insure the collection”
Yes, I’m sure there are bands of roaming penny thieves waiting to break into people’s houses to steal their spare change!
Elie Chouinard says
November 1, 2015 at 7:48 pmNow he’s centsless. The poor guy should go after them for elder abuse. He probably left at least 5 grand on the table.
Anthony Allen Anderson says
November 2, 2015 at 2:04 pmShould have run them through a Ryedale copper penny sorter first.
Joshua says
November 2, 2015 at 6:44 pm3,521 pounds if all Lincoln Copper (95%) Cents & 2,829 pounds if all Lincoln Zinc (97.5%) Cents – so yeah that is an absurd amount of weight to be moving around with or without a pickup and the help of friends and a dolly
Silver Savior says
November 7, 2015 at 11:57 pmTotally disappointed he traded this treasure at face value. I will hit myself for him. Just for the record I am one of those people who pay 3x face value for pennies on eBay. This just gets me. It’s a tragedy. Please people educate yourselves.
Cory Nielsen says
April 27, 2017 at 11:24 pmAs I have seen a lot of discussion across various sites with respect to all the old, rare and copper pennies this person must have had in his collection of 500,000 pennies perhaps one of you will want to make note of my name. I’m sitting on just over 420,000 pennies and I’m building what will become the new world record penny pyramid. You can see my videos on youtube if interested – simply do a search for Penny Building Fool. My contact information is in the description area of each video. I do short these as I go through them and have countless numbers of Wheat Pennies, a few Indian Head pennies and who knows how many copper pennies. I use the copper pennies in my pyramid.