Virginia man spends $1,000 to deliver 300,000 pennies to Lebanon DMV

I admire a man who who stands up for what he believes is right.
However, I do feel sorry for the employees that had to count the pennies, I wonder if the state paid overtime?

What a great story!

Sounds like to me that that guy has way too much money.

Phil

When my change adds up I put it in a zip lock baggie, write my name and account number on the bag and add a deposit slip in the bag and take it to my bank.
They send it out somewhere and in a few days I get an email with my deposit amount.

Easy.....

I have counted it a couple of times to see if they are doing it correctly and it comes out to the penny.

Don't most banks have automatic coin counters? They just dump them into a spnning bin and it sorts and counts them. It has been a while since I have seen one of these in operation at a bank, so maybe there is newer technology these days to do it.

but they charge a percentage.

I haven't use the coin counter at my local TD bank for some time now. It used to by yiu put the coins in the tray and it will count for you. You then get a receipt and bring it to the teller and they give you cash.

I just discovered that the TD Bank FREE service has been discontinued and the machines were removed from the banks beginning in May 2016.
I came across this article that stated TD bank was ripping off customers.
Damn it, no wonder I couldn't even afford a happy meal when I left the bank with my proceeds.

http://time.com/money/4343425/td-bank-coin-counting-machines...

Here are some banks that offer coin counting machines, some are free and others charge a percentage.there may be more.

https://www.mybanktracker.com/news/coin-counting-machines-ba...

A very long time ago,the restaurant I worked at weighed the pennies and that was close enough.

New, unused or uncirculated copper cents weigh about 3.11 grams each or about 145 copper pennies per pound. New zinc cents are much lighter and weigh only 2.5 grams each yielding about 180 zinc pennies in a pound.

My bank has to send it somewhere to have it put through a coin counter as they no longer have one, why I don't know.

My bank does not charge to send them out.

This wouldn't work very well in Canada... we no longer have pennies. Although banks will still accept pennies if you bring them in, you can't get them from a bank. So this fellow would actually have to have saved up the 300,000 pennies on his own.

Banks like most businesses look for ways to cut costs. They either have to purchase and maintain public coin counters or lease them. Most banks and credit unions offered them as a free service to their customers, but may not have found them economical for the light use they may have gotten and may have found it less expensive to outsource the coin counting.

As for the OP, I'm surprised as I've heard in the past of individuals protesting a fine or tax by paying with pennies and they were refused and the courts upheld that paying large sums in pennies was not reasonable.

I saw that in the news a couple of years ago. However, it could be that the court ruling was from a state court in a different state, and not a federal court, so this guy was not automatically affected by the previous ruling.

- Tom -

Is a penny earned.

I pick up every penny I see laying in the parking lots or wherever. No telling over the years how much I have made. Maybe $1.00.