Deco Screen in Yellow Martinique Encore. Thom Natural Three-Legged Table by Leanne Ford. Your best protection against this sort of fraud is simply checking the reputation of the people you're dealing with.Christopher Testani Shop the Living Room:ĭu Jour 7002-6. Other ways to make a new bank seem old include dipping it in salt water or acid or burying it in the ground or in cow manure, to "age" it. ![]() It's done with flat paint that resembles old oil paint. Naturally, someone's thought of painting an imitation to make it look old. Modern synthetic paint - any garish color - is a tip-off. They're more valuable with the original paint, even if - as is usually the case - it's scratched and rubbed off. Collectors just don't repaint old mechanical banks. If you're still in doubt, a magnet will tell you if a bank is iron. If your bank's smaller, you've probably bought an imitation.Īnother way to tell some fakes is by their metal: Today's cast iron is generally heavier, while if brass, pot metal or lead is substitued, a rough, pebbly quality is apparent. If you have any doubts about authenticity, you can put the base of your bank down on a tracing of the base of an original. It's a simple cast of not making 'em like they used to.įakes made by using a new mold made from an old bank can be detected by their size: Iron shrinks as it cools, so the copy will always be smaller than the original.One enterprising purist, Robert McCumber, has published a book of base tracings. ![]() Reproductions made now may be rough inside and out, as if iron casting were a lost art. Craftsmen made the cast-iron bank even smoother by tumbling it over and over in a machine. Some recent fakes can be spotted by their texture or size.īack when the originals were made, foundries used very fine sand in casting, and the result was a smooth product. Though "Made in 1860" is written on it, the bank's worth about $25. But the Book of Knowledge reproduction is further identifiable by an indented circle on the base, which can't be filed off. Unscrupulous dealers have been known to file the words off. ![]() In 1940 the Book of Knowledge copied some old banks and embossed these words on the base: "reproduced from original in collection of The Book of Knowledge." His shop, Antique Mania, 229-231 West Reed St., usually has from 50 to 100 old banks on hand.īeginning bank collectors should start off slowly and beware the bugaboo of antique-seekers - reproductions. One nearby dealer is Frank Whitson in Baltimore. If you're not in the club, you may be able to buy a mechanical bank from auctioneers such as Weschler's and Sloan's in Washington, and Thieves' Market in Alexandria through collectors' classified ads in hobby publications and antique journals, or from a dealer.įriday and Saturday the annual eastern national antique dolls, toys and games show and sale will be on at the Gaithersburg fairgrounds, and there are likely to be 50 to 60 different mechanical banks for sale by three or four dealers. One way to this end - if you own five banks and can get a member to sponsor you - is to join the Mechanical Bank Collectors of America and, at the annual reunion, swap banks and bank lore. The truly avid collector wants one of each cast-iron bank ever made. Both sold for 35 cents, but today the rabbit is worth only about $125, while the turtle commands around $15,000. Kilgore made just a few of a similar but less-loved bank, a turtle when you put a coin in his back, he nods his head. They were produced in varying quantities that now determine availability and, hence, price.Īround the turn of the century, Kilgore manufacturers in Westerville, Ohio, made what was then a very popular bank, a rabbit whose ears perk up when you feed him a coin. In all, about 300 types of banks were patented before 1935. The circus bank, which cost about 70 cents when first made in 1889, is now worth $2,000 to $4,000, depending on how well it still works and looks prices of other mechanical banks range from $125 to $20,000 or more. Some showed a hapless black man being butted by a goat, buffalo or mule, or thumbing his nose after making a deposit in the "Freeman's Bank." Chinese and Irish stereotypes were also common. ![]() The banks reflected their times, depicting attitudes considered objectionable today. For a penny, a child with a circus bank got a show: a clown in a pony cart driving around the ring, raising his hand and knocking the coin into a box. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, when these ingenious toys were made, they painlessly taught children to save money. They depict Bible stories, animals, childhood scenes or comments on the politics of their day. They're cast-iron mechanical banks, glorified piggybanks with action, now coveted as antiques. Grown men and women lie about them, fight over them, and - sometimes - feed them coins to see them move. "The only difference between men and boys is the cost of their toys."
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