A California family that was clearing out their late father’s house found a mountain of pennies during the process and is trying to figure out what to do with them.
The approximately one million pennies were discovered tucked into a crawl space at the home in Los Angeles, NBC 4 reported Friday.
“The standard value for 1 million pennies is $10,000 dollars, but these are not standard pennies. The family believes that their father, a German immigrant, hoarded the coins after the U.S. switched from making pennies out of copper to using zinc during WWII,” the outlet said.
According to the U.S. Mint Coin Classroom website, it used to be difficult to differentiate between a penny and a dime due to their similar size.
“In 1943, copper was needed for war materials, so pennies were made out of zinc-coated steel. Because the color was silvery, it was easy to mistake a penny for a dime. Fortunately, pennies were only made that way for one year,” the site read.
Meanwhile, the mountain of coins in Los Angeles has apparently sat untouched for decades, John Reyes said during an interview about his late father-in-law’s treasure.
It is possible the man planned on profiting from the value of the metal, his family members said.
“Now this is an open bag, but here’s the unique part — and this is what I’ve been getting collectors calling me about — the fact that these are lead sealed,” Reyes noted while displaying the bags of pennies:
“Boxes, crates. So it’s about a million pennies,” he said.
The family also believes one of the coins might be a collector’s item because a 1943 penny sold for over $1 million in 2010.
They listed the mountain of coins on OfferUp for $25,000 after taking them to a bank where they learned the vault could not hold that many coins.
An image shows the pile of bank bags, boxes, and a few crates containing the coins:
The family is now hoping to get input from an expert on what to do with all of the pennies, and Reyes said collectors told him they should not sell the coins until they know more about them.