For 45 Years This Man Collected Pennies and Now He is Cashing In

For 45 years, Otha Anders saved his pennies. Then, one day, he decided to turn in the loose change he’d been collecting. Everyone at the bank watched as he wheeled a dolly inside.

Otha Anders came in, dragging a dolly filled with water jugs brimming with pennies he’d discovered on the street and collected over the years.

Otha Anders, 73 years old, was a devoted family man, supported in all his endeavors by his doting wife and understanding children. A member of the Jackson School Board, he was responsible for monitoring students who had gotten into a bit of trouble and had been suspended from school.

For Otha, the habit of picking pennies up from the ground had developed from being a lighthearted diversion into a compulsive pastime over the past few years. Otha got a kick out of discovering those stray pennies scattered across the sidewalk.

In an interview, Otha justified his passion, saying, “I became convinced that spotting a lost or dropped penny was an additional God-given incentive reminding me to always be thankful.” 

Otha had always been devout, but his devotion to God had increased dramatically in recent years. He regarded every coin he unearthed as a blessing from above.

When Otha picked up his first penny from the ground, he had no idea that it would be the beginning of a practice that would last for the next 45 years. After that, he began picking up and preserving every cent he discovered.

However, there was even more to his shift into serious collecting than that. When Otha used cash to buy anything at the shop, he insisted that the clerk give him back change that included at least three or four pennies. The greater the number, the better! Though clerks likely gave him surprised looks.  

Given that it had become an everyday practice for Otha and his friends and family, they stopped even bothering him about it. They just knew that some pennies would be subtracted from the total whenever Otha made a purchase.

During an interview, Otha spoke about his fixation with pennies and said, “I would never spend a penny.” And If he had to choose between a dollar and a cent, he’d choose the penny. He couldn’t stop himself from saving those pennies. 

When Otha’s pupils learned that he was collecting pennies, they wanted to help. Students would approach him carrying handfuls of pennies and offer them to add to his collection. Although their kindness moved him, he didn’t accept their pennies.

When Otha’s pupils approached him with pennies, he did not immediately accept them as per his guidelines. According to Otha, “I never allowed anybody, not even my wife nor children, to give me pennies without being compensated.” In other words, “I never accepted free charity from anyone.” 

Otha’s pile of pennies continued to grow due to the coins he discovered on the ground, the change from purchases, and the coins other people gave him to assist him with the collection.

Otha speculated that there were potentially hundreds of thousands of coins since he had 15 five-gallon water jugs filled. But when it came down to it, he had no clue how many were in the various heaps scattered about the room.

It took Otha 45 years to fill his 15 water jugs. And if he had his way, he would fill a great number more. Fortuitously,  his fate figured to go in a different direction.

The problem is that when Otha tried to renew his homeowner’s insurance policy to include his penny collection, the insurance company refused his application. However, Otha was adamant about having homeowner’s insurance. Therefore, he figured it was time to turn his pennies into cash, finally.

Otha remembered reading a story about someone who cashed in on their coin collection, resulting in a small fortune. But that collection was a wide variety of coins, not just pennies.

If Otha had taken the time to sort through his vast collection, he might have discovered an error penny. Error pennies are coins produced with a mistake or error in them and are exceptionally rare and valuable. 

Error pennies are not only coins that were struck incorrectly but also coins plated in silver, gold, or copper. Since the value of these coins tends to rise over time, Otha’s collection had the potential to become more valuable if it was passed down from generation to generation.

Otha wasn’t able to go through each and every one of his pennies. And even if he did so, it was unlikely that he would find an error penny– the odds were very low. 

Now that Otha had made up his mind, he needed to find out how to get the pennies to the bank so he could exchange them. It was a new problem for him to consider, but luckily he was blessed with reliable friends who came to his aid.

After loading the 15 water jugs into a truck Otha and his companions could finally leave for the bank. The final step was to unload the pennies onto a dolly and wheel them into the bank for counting.

Otha was aware of a few looks the people inside the bank were throwing at him as he rolled the dolly in with the water jugs full of pennies. This was particularly true for the banker who would assist him moving forward.

The woman stood there, unsure of what her next move should be. It was not a typical day at the bank in any way, shape, or form. She was taken aback when Otha responded to her question on the number of pennies he brought in by saying, “I would guesstimate about half a million pennies.”

The Vice President responded by asking, “And you think we have the time to count half a million pennies for you? ” She had half a million pennies sitting in front of her at that moment, so her response was in some ways justifiable.

Because he was at a loss for what to do, Otha found himself laughing alongside her despite his torn spirit.

The bank did not refuse Otha service. Instead, she contacted her boss to inquire whether there was anything they could do to help Otha count his penny collection in any manner. 

It turned out that Otha had been a client of that particular bank branch for a long time, and the manager was happy to assist him in counting out his collection for this reason.

The bank wasn’t going to count the 500,000 pennies manually, and there was no point in asking them to do so. Instead, they directed Otha over to the machine that counts coins. Then, they began to work to break open the water jugs using an axe.

A final total appeared on the screen of the coin-counting machine after five hours spent feeding pennies into the device. Otha had accumulated a grand total of $5,136.14 in savings after picking up pennies from the ground for the previous 45 years.

Otha had a clear plan for his funds. Otha took his family on a trip after paying off a sizable dental bill they had recently received and giving some money to his church.