Texas Man Cashes in Over 80,000 Pennies

An 81-year-old man in Texas is $816 richer because he saved pennies for over six decades.

Ira Keys, of Slaton, made a deposit of 80,000 pennies that he had been saving for 65 years, according to NBC affiliate KCBD of Lubbock. Keys' collection weighed in at about 500 pounds.

Employees at Prosperity Bank took over an hour to count the collection of 81,600 pennies, KCBD reported.

Keys said that he hasn't spent a penny since 1952 because of advice his father gave him.

"He says, 'Whatever you do son, save your money,'" Keys told KCBD. "Back when I started in '52, I didn't have a lot of money, so I saved pennies and I just kept saving them."

A personal banker at Prosperity Bank said she had never before seen so many pennies being deposited.

"We take pennies for granted," Kari Lewis told KCBD. "You see them on the ground and you're kind of like, 'Oh, I'm not picking that up,' but for him to collect it for years and years was pretty amazing."

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