A Penny Saved Is A PennyEarned

BARBERTON, Ohio - (11/17/04) -- A long-time member of Integrity CUproved Tuesday that a million pennies is not just $10,000--but aworld record too. Seventy-nine-year-old Eugene Sukie set a newrecord yesterday when he cashed in more than one million pennies,according to Coinstar, the coin-changing company that converted androlled the 3.5 tons of copper. And that's not the bottom line,because the septuagenarian credit union member is believed to havealready cashed in as many as 300,000 more of his world-recordcollection. "For years he would come in here and get $50 a weekfrom us and roll them and sort them by mint and by year," BrandyShaffer, president of the $24 million credit union, told The CreditUnion Journal. Pushed by his wife to cash-in his 34-yearcollection, Sukie turned to Coinstar because no other institutionwas able to handle such a large pile of coinage--held in 575 cigarboxes in Sukie's basement. "We tried working out something withBrinks to go to his home and get the pennies but they wouldn't doit," said Shaffer. Sukie and his wife have not decided yet how tospend their newly minted cash, although they are considering usingit for a vacation. Sukie's final tally of 1,048,013 pennies easilytopped the previous record for penny collections, believed to be792,141.