A family cleaning out their home in Los Angeles stumbled upon several bags containing one million pennies.
John Reyes said that he was cleaning out his father-in-law’s home when he made the discovery. The bags of pennies were in unopened, sealed bank bags.
“I’ve actually been contacted by a few coin collectors or people who specialize in this space and just based off some of the questions they asked me, for example having the lead sealed bag or having bags from banks we don’t necessarily recognize, knowing they are at least 40 years old or more. I’ve had quite a few collectors tell me that this is something that shouldn’t be sold until we know what’s going on,” Reyes told FOX 11.
According to the New York Post, the family determined that the coins are copper and not zinc, which the United States switched to in the 1980’s.
Reyes has listed the coins on OfferUp, a resale website, asking for $25,000.
“The value is in the uniqueness,” he said.
Monetary value is less than the price for copper per pound unless it is a rare collector coin. Go figure…
The only year worth finding is 1909. The S-VDB specimen.
A copper 1943 penny would be nice to find, too.
Find either one in that hodge-poge and it will snow down here.
Brass pennies can be worth quite a bit, too.
Some have sold for upwards of 20,000 USD.
Sorry, the bank won’t accept them unless they’re rolled.
Can you imagine all the thoughts you could buy?
That’s a man with a lot of cents
My dad used to never spend his change. He would empty his pockets into a water cooler bottle every evening and when full would buy something cool with it. One time it was a custom pool table.
Our change jars funded family vacations, which for quite a while consisted of renting a camp on a nearby lake for a couple of weeks in the summer. Aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, cousins, and sometimes the grandparents would come.
I was a coin hound (is there such a thing?) from a young age. We lived in Amish country in southern MD and often found wheat pennies, mercury dimes, buffalo nickles, and the occasional barber dimes, v nickles, indian head pennies. We also got the occasional silver certificates. And of course all the silver coins of the “almost modern era”. I eventually worked night shift (briefly) for 7-11 and always carried a pocket of change. I’d scour the till and find all the good shit, which by 1994 there wasn’t much.
I still get a buffalo nickle now and then.
Why do people shoot their mouths off about finds like this? The government will want their cut immediately.
Brown Eyed Girl my Dad and I often talk abut this same thing. If you find some shit… SHUT THE FUCK UP! You find 900 pounds of nazi gold bars in a tank… SHUT THE FUCK UP! You find a coffee can of 5 dollar gold pieces… SHUT THE FUCK UP! You bust a safe you bought legally and it’s full of 1972 20 dollar bills… SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Most of them were saved after 1982 when the junk zinc pennies came out. The copper pennies are worth five times face but you can’t melt them down because they’re US currency. There’s no money in that deal.
I don’t know but to me 1 million copper pennies isn’t worth a wooden nickel.
So, how much would a million pennies weigh?
Old, pre-1982 copper: 3.1 grams.
Newer: 2.5 grams
Assume they’re all copper.
3.1 million grams / 454 g/lb. = 6,828 lbs.
Hire some Egyptians to move them.
Ironically, I bet Abe Lincoln never saw 10,000 dollars in his entire life.
LBS… did he see the end of the play?