Saturday, February 2, 2013

What’s That on Top of The Bank Building?

Have you notice those oddly paired combination of ‘something’ mounted atop a generic building coin bank? That ‘something’ can be another building (U.S. Capitol, Church in New Orleans), or a monument (Vulcan statue, Liberty Bell, tank, cannon), or a bizarre object (The head of Will Rogers, cowboy boots, airplane, alligator, or horse). Quite a few different parings exist of these banks, which were made by the 'Character Mfg. Co.' in Reno, Nevada. Many more than I first knew about until I began collecting photos of different varieties. Check out the photos above and below. Do you know of any not pictured here?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I just got one of these building banks with the Capitol Building on top. Really great. I know I've seen more different "somethings" on top. I'll see if I can look some up and share with you. Thanks for writing this. Joe K.

Anonymous said...

I just got the new book by Bob and Shirley Peirce, "Political Banks" through the Still Bank Collectors Club of America (SBCCA). In it, it showed photos of 3 other "topper" banks. It has banks with the busts of Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln and U.S. Grant. I had not seen these anywhere before. The list continues. Joe K.

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