This Louisiana man collected over half a million pennies since the '60s

Long years of collecting pennies as a hobby finally paid off for a man when he was at a time of dire financial need.

Otha Anders has been saving pennies for over 45 years. He began doing it when he found his first penny on the floor. Little did he know that his lifelong habit had already accumulated into a windfall, which was revealed when he took his collection to the bank.

When the bank counted all the money, they discovered that there was more than $5,000 in his collection.

Anders, 76, who had spent a good part of his life collecting pennies, realized that it was God's way of keeping him praying every day.

"There have been days where I failed to pray and more often than not, a lost or dropped penny would show up to remind me," said Anders.

Ever since he found his first ever penny, Anders actively began collecting them and stopped spending pennies altogether. He also ensured that during any purchase he made, he would get at least 2 or 3 pennies as his change.

He also had a lot of help from people who began contributing to his collection. As a supervisor for in-school suspended children at the Jackson School Board, his students found out about his collection and started to collect pennies to sell them to him.

“But I never allowed anyone, not even my wife nor children, to give me pennies without being compensated,” he said. “I wanted the inner satisfaction that God and I acquired this collection”

His penny hoard kept growing, and when he required a major and expensive dental procedure, he turned to his lifelong savings.

Jennie Cole, the vice-president of Anders' bank, revealed that it was a shock for everyone at the bank when Anders brought in every penny he had in his collection to make a deposit in 5-gallon jugs. It took them five hours at the Origin Bank in Ruston, Louisiana, to count and process.

They counted each penny and found they added up to $5,136.14.