In 2015, an elderly Louisiana gentleman sold at a nearby bank, a truckload of 55-gallon plastic water jugs of pennies he had collected on the previous 45 years. After the last penny was counted, Otha Anders received over $5,130 because the total amount for his pennies. That’s over 510,000 pennies. To the average man or woman, excellent probably sounded wonderful, but to each and every American numismatist who collects and buys coins for celebration and profit, Anders lost a ton of money.

According towards the News-Star of Monroe, La., Anders called each of his pennies became a “God-given incentive reminding me to be thankful.” In Anders case, however, a “penny saved” can be more than “a penny earned.” Many of those that he exchanged for money to get instant money, would happen to be worth more cash.

Since Anders began his penny hoarding in 1970, yet have acquired many “wheat” pennies the Mint struck between 1909 to 1958. Even today, you can still find many “wheat” cents in penny rolls and circulating change. When he soon started saving in 1970, yet have found many wheat cents in great condition. Over the last 45 years, most of every one of those pennies would you have to be valuable than one cent.

According on the “Guide Book of United States Coins 2015” by R.S. Yeoman, wheat cent values ranged from $.10 in “good” condition a number of hundred dollars in “almost” uncirculated condition. Also, the guide records some extremely rare pennies that had been worth as much as $5,000 in uncirculated conditions. However, it could be impossible to estimate the amount of the numismatic valuation on the entire collection may be; each coin must have been examined by reputable coin dealers who can have helped him sell his collection, yet it’s easy to imagine Anders could have made over $20,000 if he previously had had the patience to acquire them evaluated.

In addition to numismatic value, there exists a precious metal value to the price of the many coin’s weight in copper. All American copper coins struck until 1981 contained 95% copper. According to your “InvestmentMine” website, in 2015 the average valuation on copper was $2.86 per pound. All of Anders’ pennies together weighed over 2,800 pounds. So, if he picked out the many coins, we’d multiply 2,800 pounds and a pair of.86 the sum in copper would are actually a total of roughly $8,000. However, a conservative estimate in the number of pennies crafted from copper was 75%, we’d get about $6,000, that’s about $900 a lot more than he received.

Although Anders received over $5,100 for his enormous collection, he might have gotten far more if he took the time to acquire all of them evaluated with a trained numismatist. However, fortunately that if you reside in or near Louisiana, you might buy many rolls of pennies from local banks and in all likelihood find among those higher valued wheat cents.