A man was left in disbelief after finding one million copper pennies in his late father-in-law's home.
John Reyes, 41, an estate agent, and his wife Elizabeth were in the garage of her dad's home last year when they stumbled upon some loose pennies stuffed in some paper rolls.
He kept digging and eventually found dozens of bangs containing copper pennies - which were estimated to have a face vale of $10,000.
Mr Reyes told the Los Angeles Times: “There are banks [named] on the bags I haven’t even heard of or don’t exist anymore."
He made several different enquiries to banks to try and exchange them for cash but none of them wanted his huge collection.
Mr Reyes called up a Wells Fargo branch in Los Angeles, but the manager said they didn't have enough room for all of the coins.
He was told to bring around $300 worth of pennies at a time, but the son-in-law rejected the idea as all of the coins were wrapped in paper rolls.
Mr Reyes told KLR: “Literally bag-by-bag, we had to take them out of the basement, up the stairs, and into the trucks … it took hours. It took a whole day just to get them out of the crawlspace.”
Instead, he was urged by one bank manager to look at whether he had any valuable pennies.
John listed the coins on OfferUp, which is a resale app and website, for $25,000 to $30,000, which is more than the $10,000 value.
He added: "Someone can buy them and they can go penny-hunting."
Although he's had several offers, he is waiting for a bidder to take them all off his hands.
Father-in-law Fritz, who collected the coins along with his brother, emigrated from Germany to the US in the 1960s.
Mr Reyes thinks the collection began when the US began switching from copper to zinc.
The US mint anticipated an increase in the price of copper in the 1980s and moved to making coins out of zinc to save money.
John said this was a factor behind him collecting the coins as "that's just the kind of man he was."
“You have German immigrants who came over very young, and these were two great men who thought you should own things that are stored in value,” he said. “They don’t believe in much besides the value of precious metals.”
Despite his local bank in California not wanting to take the pennies, he was urged to go through them and search for any gems.
John, however, will let the new owner search instead, he revealed: "The value is in the uniqueness."
