He walked into the bank with a trolley rolling behind him, the sound of coins clinking together quickly drawing attention. Otha Anders, sometimes called the “coin master,” had spent decades building an unusual collection that began as a simple pastime but eventually became an important part of his daily life.

For Anders, every penny he found carried a special meaning. He viewed a lost or dropped penny as a reminder from God to remain grateful and remember his prayers. So he kept collecting them. For 45 years, Anders saved pennies, eventually filling multiple five-gallon plastic water jugs. He knew he had accumulated hundreds of thousands of coins, but he didn’t know exactly what they were worth. Eventually, the time came to find out. Anders loaded the enormous collection and brought it to the bank, where employees began the difficult process of opening the containers and counting everything inside.

The bank employees were in for an unusual experience. The containers holding the pennies had to be opened before the coins could be processed. According to accounts of the story, employees spent hours cutting into the jugs and feeding the massive collection through a coin-counting machine. After roughly five hours of work, the final total was finally revealed.

After 45 years of collecting, Anders had accumulated $5,136.14 in pennies—more than half a million individual one-cent coins. Spread across those 45 years, that worked out to roughly $114 saved per year. What began with individual pennies picked up one at a time had quietly grown into thousands of dollars.

But Anders didn’t simply treat the money as an unexpected spending spree. He reportedly used part of the collection to help pay a dental bill. The money represented decades of patience and a habit that had become closely connected to his personal sense of gratitude.

He also reportedly used some of the remaining money for a family trip and donations to his church. For Anders, however, the real value of the collection wasn’t necessarily the final dollar amount. Each penny had represented a small reminder to appreciate what he had. After 45 years, those tiny reminders added up to $5,136.14, showing in a very literal way how something seemingly insignificant can become substantial when accumulated patiently over decades.