Chinese man buys van with loose change

BEIJING - A man in China paid for a van with 100,000 yuan ($14,700) in loose change he gathered over the years.

The man named Zhao, a businessman, gave bundles of notes, none of which were worth more than one yuan at the car dealership in Jining in Shandong province, the BBC reported Friday citing local media.

Extra staff had to be brought in to count the money, a clerk at the dealership said.

Zhao, who received the notes from customers at his printing business, said finding a dealership who agreed to accept the notes, many of them stained and torn, was not easy.

“I held on to the money waiting to see if they would accept it so that I could buy the car. The manager of this dealership decided to accept my cash, so that was really helpful to me,” he said.

After hours of counting, the staff at the dealership confirmed he had provided the exact amount.

“Our finance department originally had three or four people counting the money, but that was certainly not enough. So we added some colleagues from the sales department, they came in the morning and worked all day, and then we added another shift. We finally finished counting all of the money,” said Chen Ying, a cashier with the dealership.