This Man Saved All His Pennies For 65 Years. When He Brought Them To The Bank, You Wont Believe What They Told Him Benjamin Franklin always said: a penny saved is a penny earned. Well, Ira Keys took that message to heart. When he was a teen, Keys father told the 17-year-old that whatever you do, save your money. Back in the 1950s, he didnt have much. So he scrimped and saved all his pennies. For 65 years, then, since his father had told him to save up in the year 1950, Ira saved his little copper coins. He stored them in Folgers cans in the garage, which stacked to the ceiling. Finally, in 2015 he decided to cash in. Taking them to the bank was hard enoughall told, the many jars of pennies weighed out to be 500 lbs. We take pennies for granted, a banker named Kari Lewis said. You see them on the ground and youre kind of like, Oh, Im not picking that up, but for him to collect it for years and years was pretty amazing. All in all, the five-hundred pounds of pennies added up to 81,600, which is $816. Not bad (though I had expected a lot more!) 