Phoenix man makes giant pyramid from over 1 million pennies

PHOENIX (FOX 10) -- A Phoenix man is putting his pennies to impressive use. Instead of stashing his pennies in a jar, Cory Nielsen has built what he hopes will be the world's largest coin pyramid.

The pyramid stands 3 ft, 7 in (~1.09m) tall, and weighs over 6,000 lbs.

"You're looking at 65 stacks all the way across the bottom, and then, it's gonna be 65 stacks going back, and 65 stacks going to the top," said Nielsen. "I spent three years, start to finish. Taking time off, I built it in about 1.8 years."

It's not the first time Nielsen has built such a pyramid.

"I originally had built a smaller one, 47,000 pennies on my desk in my office," said Nielsen. "I thought that was pretty big, and I saw people work, and they ask me if that's a world record. I'm like, I don't know, but if it isn't, I will make it one."

Nielsen stuck to his goal, and used up a total of 1,030,315 pennies. The pennies are valued at just over $10,000. He also created a YouTube channel called "Penny Building Fool" to document it all.

"I didn't think that I would get a lot of views, but this last video, almost 100,000 views over four days," said Nielsen.

Nielsen is now waiting to get the official confirmation from the Guinness Book of World Records, and he is already looking forward at what he plans to do next.

"I'm gonna make a video of destroying this pyramid," said Nielsen. "Then, we're gonna take it to the credit union and surprise some tellers. It's gonna take a big trailer and a lot of people."