Unusual treasure of a million copper coins found in California

An unusual treasure was found by a family from California. John Reyes and his family were cleaning their father-in-law’s house when they made an unexpected discovery: over a million copper coins.

Cleaning out a home for renovations can often come with nasty surprises, but one Los Angeles family got lucky — a million times over — with one of their finds.

Realtor John Reyes was helping his wife Elizabeth clean her father’s house when they discovered more than 1 million copper coins in a cramped basement, according to KTLA news. The find has a face value of at least $10,000, but could be worth over $1 million.

The family believes that the house, owned by Reyes’ father-in-law, Fritz, was once used as a bed and breakfast inn. Fritz and his brother, both German immigrants, lived in this house for decades until Fritz died and his brother left.

“They kept everything,” Reyes told KTLA, adding that the house was filled with items of varying degrees of importance.

During the renovation, the family dug through the farthest corner of the basement, where they found scattered copper coins held together by crumbling paper rolls, according to the Los Angeles Times. Further checking revealed dozens of bank bags filled with copper coins.

“The bags mention jars that I haven’t even heard of or don’t exist anymore,” Reyes said. They were followed by dozens of crates and several crates filled with coins.

Coins were originally made from pure copper until the US Mint switched to zinc-plated steel in 1943 as copper was needed during World War II. By 1982, small change was minted primarily from zinc.

Fritz most likely began collecting coins as soon as the US began switching from copper to zinc, Reyes suggested in a Los Angeles Times commentary.

“You have German immigrants who came in very young and they were two great people who thought you should own things that hold value,” Reyes said. “They don’t believe in anything other than the value of precious metals.”

Convinced that the coins they found were made of copper, the family did some rough calculations and calculated that the whole huge pile was worth $1 million. But what to do with them?

Reyes spoke to the manager of his local bank. “I showed her the picture and she said, ‘I’ve been working for ages and I’ve never seen anything like it.’ You cannot cash out. There is a chance that you may have valuable coins,” he said.

The man searched social media for “change hunters” and eventually posted the coins – the family would have preferred to sell the entire find – to be sold on the resale site OfferUp for $25,000, but received offers only from people asking to sell only part of the collection.

So far, the family has retrieved the pennies from the basement and moved them by truck to Ontario, California, closer to Reyes’ home, and is awaiting new coin offerings.

The local bank encouraged the family to go through the collection and look for rarities there.

Reyes reluctantly agreed. “You see all these stories of people finding $2 million worth of change,” he told KTLA. With more than 1 million chances, it is very likely that the family will be lucky, concludes The Guardian.