Unexpected Windfall: Son-in-Law Cleans Deceased In-Laws' House, Finds Bag Full of Ancient Coins Worth Millions, Bringing Joy

Dream - A man in California, United States was shocked when cleaning his deceased in-laws' house. He did not expect to find a bag filled with one-cent coins totaling about one million pieces.

KTLA reported that real estate agent John Reyes found a very large collection of copper coins, with a value of US$10,000 or about Rp148.5 million, in the basement of a house in Los Angeles.

According to New York Post, this surprising discovery began when Reyes and his family were helping clean a room in his in-laws' house. Initially, he found some loose change in torn paper rolls.

After finding the coins, Reyes also found chests, boxes, and dozens of bank bags filled with coins. They concluded that the coins they found were made of copper, not zinc, which the United States used to make coins in the 1980s.

Initially, they intended to exchange the coins for more useful cash. However, they later realized that the coins could not be directly exchanged for cash.

“We have to take this to Coinstar (a company that accepts coin exchange),'” said Reyes, who lives in Ontario, California.

“We don't want to pay 8%, and it's not possible for us to bring all this (back) to Ontario,” he added.

In fact, local banks refused to take the coins due to their large quantity. Their safes were unable to accommodate them.

“Don't bring them here,” Reyes recalled the bank manager saying.

Finally, Reyes transported the stacks to his home in Ontario, which is 53 kilometers away from LA. This was certainly not easy, as it took a full day just to remove the coins from the crawlspace.

“Literally bag by bag, we had to bring them out of the basement, climb the stairs, and get them into the truck... it took hours,” Reyes explained.

The hope that a bank near his home would accept the coins did not match expectations. The bank still refused to exchange the coins.

They suggested that Reyes examine the coin collection and make sure if there were any worth more than one cent.

It is known that Fritz, Reyes' deceased father-in-law, was a well-known butcher in Hollywood. He had a habit of buying copper coins because he believed their value would increase over time.

However, the Reyes family was not interested in spending more time on the project, so they listed the coins on OfferUp, a resale website, asking for $25,000 (Rp371.4 million) in payment.

Although it is more than double its value in currency, “its value lies in its uniqueness,” he said.