A Canadian realtor finds over a million pennies after cleaning out his late father-in-law's Los Angeles home. He can't find a bank that will take all of his pennies in one batch, so he has turned to the app OfferUp to sell them. At face value, it would cost a person $10,000 to buy a million pennies, but he has priced this lot of copper pennies at $25,000.
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| Pennies; credit: KMR Photography (CC BY 2.0) |
What would you do with a million pennies? Would you build a vault and swim around in them like the fictional character Scrooge McDuck? Or would you donate them to a worthy cause?
A realtor can't find a bank willing to take all of his pennies at once. In fact, one bank said, "Don't bring them here." Is that even legal?
Man Finds At Least a Million Pennies in Late Father-in-Law's Home
KTLA 5 News reported that realtor John Reyes is in a quandary after going through the belongings in his father-in-law's former home and discovering over a million pennies in the crawlspace. His father-in-law, Fritz had this home that was built in the 1900s and is thought to have been a bed-and-breakfast at one time.
After Fritz passed away, the family went through the belongings in the house, and during that time they found the pennies.
The family would like to renovate this home but first requires the arduous task of going through all of the belongings. This is when they make the discovery of all of the pennies.
John spoke to KTLA 5 News with words that many of us can relate to when speaking about our grandparents' homes.
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| Pennies found in the crawlspace; credit: John Reyes |
He said, “They kept everything,” which is a polite way of not saying his father-in-law was a "hoarder," referring to those that are unwilling to throw away anything in their home.
They were able to confirm that the pennies found were copper after selecting three random bags and checking through them. After weighing the bags, they estimated that there are at least 1 million pennies in this stash they found, and they moved them to another location for "safekeeping."
The task of moving the pennies took them a whole day.
John said:
“Literally bag-by-bag, we had to take them out of the basement, up the stairs, and into the trucks … it took hours,” Reyes said. “It took a whole day just to get them out of the crawlspace.” -John Reyes
John and his family decided it wouldn't be prudent to take the pennies to a Coinstar machine, after all, they do charge an 8% fee, and also agreed that it wouldn't be possible to take them back to Ontario, Canada.
One Wells Fargo branch manager in California told John:
“‘I don’t even have the room in my vault. ‘Don’t bring them here.'” -Wells Fargo branch manager
After deciding that it would be easier to sell them than to transport them, John listed the pennies on the OfferUp app for $25,000, but KTLA 5 News reported that this is "more than double the $10,000 value in normal currency" at face value (not taking into account any pennies that might be valuable).
The video can be watched below.
Update: Someone Purchases the Pennies
John Reyes found a buyer for the million pennies, but did not disclose how much they were sold for.
Thoughts
What would you do if you found a million pennies? Would you go through them and find rare and valuable coins, or would you sell them like the owner in the story above?
(Share your thoughts and opinions in the comments below)
Please share this interesting article with friends and family on social media.
Sources
ABC7 News. "Family finds 1 million pennies while cleaning Los Angeles home." ABC 7. 10 June 2023
Instagram account for John Reyes: @jdreyes01
Schlepp, Travis. "Family finds 1 million copper pennies while leaning out Los Angeles home." KTLA 5 News. Updated 12 June 2023.
Wells Fargo official website.
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