The machine, a faded Coin Cruncher cabinet, rattled suspiciously when Mike dragged it home to his garage in Boise, Idaho. Curiosity got the better of him, and with a screwdriver in hand, he pried open the coin compartment. What spilled out wasn\u2019t just a few stray quarters \u2013 it was a cascade of pennies, thousands upon thousands, pouring onto the floor like a jackpot gone wild.\n

\u201cI thought it was broken or some kid\u2019s prank,\u201d Mike told reporters, still dazed. \u201cThen I started counting \u2013 it was over 50,000 pennies, all jammed in there like the machine had been hoarding them for decades.\u201d\n

The total? A staggering $500 in copper coins, weighing nearly 300 pounds. Experts say it\u2019s likely the result of a glitch in Coin Cruncher\u2019s coin-sorting mechanism, which rejected pennies back in the day but kept them trapped inside instead of spitting them out. Abandoned in an arcade that shut down in 2001, the machine sat untouched, quietly amassing its penny treasure until Mike came along.\n

But here\u2019s where it gets wild: instead of cashing in, Mike turned the discovery into a viral sensation. He hauled the machine to his local bar, hooked it up, and declared \u201cPenny Night\u201d \u2013 free plays for anyone who brought their own pennies to add to the stash. The gimmick exploded, drawing crowds, news crews, and even a few coin collectors offering to buy the machine for thousands.\n

\u201cI could\u2019ve melted it down or dumped it at the bank,\u201d Mike grinned, \u201cbut this is way more fun. It\u2019s like the game\u2019s still alive, sucking up pennies and spitting out stories.\u201d\n

Now, Coin Cruncher is a local legend, and Mike\u2019s weighing offers to tour it nationwide. Is this the weirdest windfall in gaming history? One thing\u2019s for sure \u2013 those pennies are worth a lot more than a single play!\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When 42-year-old Mike Hensley bought a banged-up arcade machine at a garage sale for $20, he thought he\u2019d scored a nostalgic piece of his childhood. Little did he know, this rusty relic from the ’90s was hiding a fortune in plain sight \u2013 and it\u2019s turning his life upside down. The machine, a faded Coin […]\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6080,"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077\/revisions\/6080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lorebloom.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}