Penny for your thoughts? Even without devaluation and inflation, a currency’s value isn’t set in stone. So, when a couple found almost a million pennies in their basement, they thought perhaps they had a coin worth a million dollars.
When that outcome seemed unlikely, they changed course and instead listed the whole property for $25,000. But the intrigue gets more involved! These tiny treasures were found in the crawl space of a family home discovered when John Reyes and his wife were cleaning out her father’s old house. But why did he have this hoard?
A couple discovers a basement crawl space filled to the brim with pennies
Before the death of Reyes’ father-in-law, he and his wife set out to clean her old family home in Los Angeles. There, in the basement, was Reyes’ father-in-law’s hidden stash of 800,000 pennies. Discovering them was one world-changing revelation; actually working with them became a whole other endeavor. First, they had to get the pennies out of there, a feat that took all day, and turned their pickup trucks into lowriders when they went to move the pennies to a second location.
RELATED: Ten Of The Most Valuable Pennies Worth Searching For In Your Home
In the 1980s, the U.S. government reduced the amount of copper in its pennies. In response to this, Reyes’ father-in-law started collecting up the pennies in his basement, believing that the value would appreciate over time thanks to the limited availability.
These pennies may be just what they seem
According to CoinNews, by 2022, it cost 2.27 cents to make pennies. Perhaps the confusing and evolving history of the penny would make one of the coins in the Reyes collection worth an exponentially greater amount than any of these numbers. The wheat penny is among the most valuable, after all. In the absence of this, even just one Lincoln penny in good condition can fetch $1,000.
So, the couple gave their surprise assortment a look. However, it was a big task, and the couple sorted through their coins for about an hour before they gave up. On top of that, a local Wells-Fargo employee said there wasn’t enough room in the vault for this kind of haul.
Instead, they’re now listing the whole lot for $25,000. “We had no clue what we were looking for,” said Reyes. So, they’re looking for “a really serious buyer” who wants a go at possibly finding a million-dollar treasure.
Would you take that bet?
