In 2015, an elderly gentleman from Louisiana cashed a truckload of 55-gallon plastic water jugs of pennies he had collected over the previous 45 years from a nearby bank. After the last penny was counted, Otha Anders received more than $ 5,130 as the total amount of his pennies. That is more than 510,000 cents. To the general public, this news probably sounded wonderful, but for every American numismatist who collects and buys coins for fun and profit, Anders lost a lot of money.
According to the Monroe, Louisiana News-Star, Anders referred to each of his pennies as a “God-given incentive that reminds me to always be thankful.” In Anders’ case, however, a “penny saved” may be more than “a penny earned.” Many of the ones you charged for instant money would have been worth more money.
Since Anders began accumulating pennies in 1970, he would have collected many “wheat” pennies that the Mint earned between 1909 and 1958. Even today, there are still many “wheat” pennies on penny rolls and change in circulation. When you started saving in 1970, you would have found a lot of wheat pennies in excellent condition. Over the past 45 years, most of each of those pennies would become more valuable than a hundred.
According to RS Yeoman’s “2015 United States Coin Guide”, the values of the hundreds of wheat ranged from $ 0.10 in “good” condition to several hundred dollars in “near” uncirculated condition. Additionally, the guide records some extremely rare pennies that were worth up to $ 5,000 in uncirculated condition. However, it would be impossible to estimate how much the numismatic value of the entire collection might be; Each coin would have had to be vetted by reputable coin dealers who could have helped him sell his collection, but it’s easy to imagine Anders would have made over $ 20,000 if he’d had the patience to evaluate them.
In addition to the numismatic value, there is a precious metal value for the price of the entire weight of the coin in copper. All American copper coins minted until 1981 contained 95% copper. According to the “InvestmentMine” website, in 2015 the average value of copper was $ 2.86 per pound. All of Anders’ pennies combined weighed more than 2,800 pounds. So if you were to pick all the coins, we would multiply 2,800 pounds and 2.86, the sum in copper would have been a total of about $ 8,000. However, a conservative estimate of the amount of pennies made from copper was 75%, we would get around $ 6,000, which is about $ 900 more than what you received.
Although Anders received more than $ 5,100 for his huge collection, he could have gotten much more if he had taken the time to have all of them evaluated by a trained numismatist. However, the good news is that if you live in or near Louisiana, you could buy a lot of penny rolls at local banks and probably find some of those higher value wheat pennies.