TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I

THE AGE OF BANKS

It would be difficult indeed to find any group of articles concerning which there exists a more widespread and total misconception of age and period than that of mechanical banks. It appears manifest that the first duty of the dispassionate historian is to clarify the exact status of the subject, and to separate the facts brought out by detailed research from the ideas which started in the early days of antiquarian interest in mechanical banks as mere theories or surmises, but which through
lack of contradiction, have now become regarded as definite fact.

The prevailing, in fact the only conception of the age of the commercially manufactured
mechanical bank, seems to be that the period of their production dates roughly from within a few years after the close of the Civil War to the end of the nineteenth century, with perhaps a few “renegade” designs made in very, very small quantities up to about 1906. Even with this theory, banks were not regarded as really old as antiques go, still they did date from the era of Sandwich glass, Currier & Ives prints, and other generally accepted collectibles.

This old theory of mechanical bank ages is so totally erroneous that it is difficult to see how
it could ever have been accepted for one moment, except on the grounds that it was what the majority of interested parties wished to believe and to have others believe. Even the most casual and superficial inquiries into the subject would immediately reveal the absolute falsity of the old conceptions, and all further research would only serve to confirm this.

To set forth the correct picture at the start, this information, which will no doubt prove startling to many, may well be summarized in a few brief statements of fact: First, very few types of mechanical banks were manufactured prior to about 1875. From 1875, through the '80s and '90s, mechanical bank production soared, both in the number of types of banks brought out, and in the quantity of each bank manufactured. Second, the twenty-five year period following 1906, which was formally believed to have been devoid of banks, was actually the period in which the greatest quantities of any bank were turned out. The majority of banks which are fairly common today were manufactured in this period. The Jolly Nigger Bank, for example, was in production from the mid 1880’s to 1928! At the very time that the first article on mechanical banks written from an antiquarian standpoint appeared, in the October, 1926 Antiques, a number of the very banks illustrated in that article, to be specific, the Kicking Mule Bank, the Trick Dog Bank, and the William Tell Bank, were still being turned out by the tens of thousands by the original manufacturers!

Mention is sometimes made of certain banks being listed in this or that particular catalog, the most frequent reference being to the No. 5 and No. 6 catalogs of the J. & E. Stevens Company of Cromwell, Conn., the leading manufacturers. Those who refer to these catalogs, however, are careful to omit the fact that each catalog carries a clearly printed date of issue, and that the dates in the No. 5 and No. 6 Stevens catalogs are 1917 and 1924 respectively!

The 1924 Stevens catalog, No. 6, illustrates and lists the following mechanical banks which they had in production at that time: Cabin, Owl, Jolly Nigger, Artillery, Kicking Mule, William Tell, and Teddy And The Bear. In addition to those above named, the No. 5 catalog of 1917 also lists the Tammany, Bill E. Grin, Eagle (sometimes called Eagle And Eaglets), Base Ball (Darktown Battery), Bad Accident, Bear Hunt (Indian Shooting Bear), Football (A Calamity), Lion Hunter, and Boy Scout. The Called Out Bank, which was formerly accepted as a bank of the Spanish American War which supposedly never got past the sample stage, was actually a World War I item, made by the thousands, and actually not introduced until after the 1917 catalog had been printed. It was therefore listed on a separate catalog insert sheet. Further, definite and irrefutable evidence, including the production records of the factory and the testimony of men who had been concerned in the manufacture of the banks, from the president of the company to the workmen who poured the castings, proves that the banks listed in the 1924 catalog were all in production and made up until 1928, when the Stevens line of mechanical banks was finally discontinued solely because the high cost of iron made the manufacture of cap pistols a more profitable line. (Russell Frisbie, the former president of Stevens, has stated that when he first entered the business in 1926, mechanical banks were fast losing ground as a profitable item, as the cost of making the banks was steadily mounting. According to Mr. Frisbie, banks which were selling at $9.00 per dozen in 1926 could not be made profitably to sell for less than four times that amount in 1941.) Actually, one bank which is generally classified as a mechanical, the Pay Phone Bank, which was only brought out in 1927, was manufactured by Stevens after the remainder of there mechanical banks were discontinued.

It will be obvious to anyone acquainted with the relative quantities in which the various types of mechanical banks are found today, that the majority of those which are brought to light are those made in recent years. Two factors determine the scarcity of a bank today, its age, and the popularity it enjoyed when current. This explains why a few banks, such as the Excelsior, manufactured many years ago in vast quantities, are so much more common today than some more recent banks which were made in smaller quantities, such as the North Pole, Clown And Harlequin, Shoot The Chute, etc. It must be remembered, however, that thousands and thousands of these now scarce or rare banks were manufactured.

If the last statement should also seem unbelievable to some, it should be remembered that the banks which are common today were made by the tens of thousands and even the hundreds of thousands. The life of a toy is usually very short, and its preservation for any length of time highly problematic. A toy of which only a few specimens survive today would naturally have been made by the thousands. The amount of toys which are insatiably, and without seeming effort devoured by the trade is, and always has been, almost incomprehensible. Also, as pointed out in Chapter V, it was unprofitable even to introduce a new bank unless a first run of at least 10,000 pieces could be assured!

Some mechanical banks were made in large quantities, but are scarce today, despite diligent searching, because of their more fragile construction. Among these are the Weeden banks, manufactured in the late 1880’s and 1890’s of very light sheet metal and wood. After World War I, Weeden revived one of their old bank designs, the Plantation Bank, and made it up into the 1920’s. While even in the nineteenth century the Plantation Bank was by far the most widely sold of the Weeden banks, its later revival is chief reason for the fact that it alone, of a half dozen types made by Weeden fifty years ago, is almost the only one ever found. Indeed, Weeden is known to have made several types of mechanical banks in this series in the 1890’s of which no surviving specimens have ever been found!

The Freedman’s Bank, manufactured in fairly large quantities in the early 1880’s by Jerome B. Secor of Bridgeport, and assuredly the most interesting and desirable of all mechanical banks, was largely made of wood and cloth, with the only metal entering into it being in the body of the figure, the clockwork, and the screws and nails. It is a rare bank today because of its fragile construction, not because it was unsuccessful. It was a true mechanical bank in that it had a clockwork mechanism; the word “mechanical” always implies a clockwork unit in the terminology of old toys. The term “mechanical banks” when broadly applied to all banks with movement is therefore actually a misnomer which popular usage has placed beyond all hope of correction at this late date. “Animated banks” would be a much more descriptive and correct form.

The Freedman’s Bank is also a first class example of the all too common habit of pre-dating almost any old toy, and particularly of the dangerous custom of dating a bank by the character of its design. This is discussed fully in connection with this particular bank at a later point. To carry this system to its ultimate conclusion in absurdity, it would be necessary to consider the Jonah And The Whale Bank as being turned out by some contemporary foundry in Biblical times!

Even admitting this system for the dating of banks, it is difficult to see how designs with such obvious twentieth century motifs as Teddy And The Bear, North Pole, and Boy Scout Camp could ever have been regarded as of nineteenth century origin.

What prevailed with Stevens prevailed with their competitors as well. The Hubley Mfg. Co. of Lancaster, Penna., continued to manufacture and sell iron mechanical banks of designs originating in the early years of this century, and even in the 1890’s, well beyond the date at which Stevens found it unprofitable to continue their line. Indeed, Hubley was producing three such bank designs as an integral part of their toy line up until the Second World War necessitated curtailing the use of ferrous metals for toys. One of these so called “modern” banks, the trick Monkey Bank, was introduced in the early 1920’s. Another, the Trick Dog Bank, is a development of a bank originally patented in 1888, and made in the “modern” form of castings for about thirty-five years. The third, the Trick Elephant Bank, was introduced by Hubley in its “modern” form-the only form it was ever made in-prior to 1906. Efforts have even been made to explain away these banks by creating imaginary variations between the “old” and the “new” models, especially in the case of the Trick Elephant Bank where a non-existent variety with “welded ears”, in place of the riveted ears of the “modern” bank is cited. Actually, all of these banks have riveted ears, although earlier models can be distinguished from the later ones by a minor internal variation.

At just the time Stevens was starting to consider dropping their line of mechanical banks, another iron toy manufacturer was launching a new line of iron mechanical banks, whose smaller size and simpler construction had been developed with an aim to serve the still ardent demand for mechanical banks and at the same time overcome the usual difficulties of manufacturing them. This firm, the Kilgore Mfg. Company of Waterville, Ohio, brought out their line of four new banks in 1926. These four banks were the Rabbit In Cabbage, Frog On Rock, Owl With Book Under Arm, and Turtle, all of which except the last named were made in very large quantities. Production of the Turtle Banks was rather limited, although a quantity was definitely made and sold to certain accounts. This line of animal banks was discontinued about 1934, according to the company records.

In considering the age of mechanical banks, or of any other plaything, it should be remembered that fifteen or twenty years is a long time in the life of a toy.

Chapter II

In research on the historical development of any commercially manufactured article, old catalogs, circulars, and other advertising and promotional literature play a valuable, and, even now, all too frequently underestimated part. In connection with the study of mechanical banks, this printed material is of value in ascertaining the details of types of banks which were manufactured, but of which no specimens have as yet turned up, the dates at which banks were introduced or discontinued, the identities of the manufacturers of specific banks, the prices various banks sold at, and a wealth of information of an even less obvious but even more important nature from an historical standpoint.

Bank literature falls into five classifications: manufacturers’ catalogs, jobbers’ catalogs, mail order and other catalogs offering banks at retail, small circulars or dodgers issued by the manufacturers, describing one or two banks, and lithographed colored cards or slips, produced by the manufacturer, but generally imprinted with the name and address of a local toy dealer or jobber. Such “selling helps” were very unusual in the toy field in the period of the 1880’s. In fact, these bank cards were probably among the first efforts along these lines in the toy business. They were lithographed in bright, often garish, colors, usually printed on one side only, although a few had wording on the reverse, and were generally about 3" x 5", although a few larger sized ones were also issued. The cards carried full color illustrations of the bank, together with name, description of action, and various other information, including at times the price, size, catalog number, etc.

These cards seem to have been originated by the Shepard Hardware Company of Buffalo, N.Y., for the promotion of such banks of theirs as Humpty Dumpty, Jolly Nigger, and Speaking Dog, and were later continued for a while by Stevens for these and other types, after the latter concern bought out the Shepard line of mechanical banks in the early 1890’s. The cards were supplied to jobbers by the manufacturers, either gratis with shipments of banks, or at a slight charge, and in turn the jobbers (except in cases where they themselves employed the cards for the promotion of wholesale sales of banks) would supply dealers who purchased banks with a quantity of these cards which they could have imprinted and distributed around their localities in any way they thought would do the most good. Because of their very attractive appearance, many of these cards were collected by children and pasted in albums which in that day were sold to house collections of the many trade cards being distributed at that time.

A few were not printed on cardboard, but on thin paper. Also, there were some that carried both the manufacturer’s name as well as the dealer’s imprint. There is one particularly noteworthy example. One side shows two views of French’s Automatic Toy Bank, with a brief description. The illustrations are all the more attractive because of their essential simplicity as compared with the usual gaudiness of these cards. The other side of this card or slip carries a complete description, the name and address of the manufacturer, and the imprint of a local dealer.

The bulk of bank advertising and sales matter was for trade use, however, and consisted chiefly of catalogs issued by the manufacturers themselves, and jobbers’ catalogs which reached the actual dealer. Such publications were frequently elaborate, and issued in large quantities, but their very character has made them scarce, for most jobbers and dealers periodically destroyed all old catalogs when new editions arrived, and toy manufacturers themselves are notoriously lax in retaining complete files of their own catalogs. Very few have even a medium sized file of their own issues.

When goods are being manufactured, all attention is focused on current problems, and apparently little thought is given to saving catalogs for their future historical interest. Consequently, almost all catalogs that are located must be searched out from where they have lain for years in old stores, homes, and other places. It is surprising the number that do continue to turn up.

Catalogs frequently ran to considerable size, even in the very early days. One large New York City jobbing house, Oscar Strasburger & Co., issued a 346 page, fully illustrated catalog in 1880. This was bound in heavy cloth covers like a regular book. Other examples of the size of the catalogs put out by leading jobbers are a 128 page catalog issued in 1876 by the National Toy Company, and a 192 page catalog of 1885 issued by the famous firm of Ives, Blakeslee & Co., who were the leading manufacturers of mechanical toys, and jobbers of other lines, including banks. The jobbing catalogs of Selchow & Righter of this period generally list more banks in each issue than those of most of their competitors, and they were plainly one of the leading wholesalers of mechanical banks in the 1880’s and 1890’s. The catalogs of a number of jobbers other than those mentioned above are equally valuable source material.

Some jobbers’ catalogs, of course, were small and inexpensively printed pieces, often without illustrations and relying entirely on printed descriptions of the goods offered. The “Descriptive Catalogues” of C.F. Lauer of New York are perhaps the most typical of this class of issue. For the most part, however, jobbers’ catalogs were of fair size and comparatively well illustrated. The illustrations used in these catalogs were made by the manufacturers of the articles who supplied jobbers with cuts of various sizes from these illustrations for use in their catalogs. Such cuts were generally electros or stereotypes made from wood cuts which, in turn, were made from a good drawing of a finished bank. In most cases these old catalog cuts were extremely accurate. Even in the 1920’s and 1930’s, mechanical bank manufacturers favored line drawings over photographic reproductions.

In a few cases the first cuts were inaccurate and later supplanted by correct ones. This is the case with the Bucking Mule Bank. When this bank was introduced in 1880, a cut was used to illustrate it in jobbers’ catalogs which, although resembling the bank sufficiently to convey an idea of its appearance, was actually not a cut of the bank. At one time it was thought this cut was simply an artist’s conception made from a description or an early sample. Actually, however, it was a cut of an early iron animated toy which performed the same action as the bank, but which was manufactured and sold as a toy for several years prior to the introduction of the bank. Quite obviously, the growing demand for mechanical banks inspired the ingenious manufacturer to see the potentialities for converting this toy into a mechanical bank, and he proceeded accordingly.

It is possible that one or two banks were drawn and cataloged which for some reason or other were never actually made, but it is probable that any bank which ever reached the stage of being cataloged, pictured, and offered to the trade or general public was produced in at least limited quantities. One mechanical bank which is known only through such a listing is the Captain Kidd Bank, described as a mechanical bank in the Montgomery Ward catalog of 1901-1902. This bank is known to exist as a still bank, but no specimens of the mechanical version seem to have yet turned up. Oddly enough, the bank illustrated as the mechanical is shown as made in exact reverse to the still bank; this may, however, merely be a result of failing to turn over the negative in making the engraving.

The Race Course Bank is illustrated in some catalogs with sulkys instead of with horses and jockeys. Some of the labels which were pasted on the wooden boxes in which these banks were packed were also printed with this same cut. So far, none of these banks have ever been found fitted with sulkys instead of race horses. The cut with the sulkys was used to picture this bank when it was first introduced, and it is possible it was originally planned to manufacture it in this form. Perhaps the very first productions were made with sulkys, but none have come to light so far. On the other hand, they may only be an artist’s touch as he worked from an incomplete early sample.

In connection with the Freedman’s Bank, at least two different catalog drawings were used which led to an early theory that this bank was made in two styles. The drawing in the 1880 Strasburger catalog (shortly after the bank was introduced) is rather more crude than what seems to be a slightly later cut. It seems that special pains were taken in making up the drawings of these toys. As a matter of fact, the manufacturer of this bank, Secor, also employed original photographs of his toys for use in selling them to the trade, mounting each print, and writing his name and trade under each picture. These Secor photographs form another and extremely unusual type of bank advertising material.

Another source of historical data is advertisements in old toy and novelty trade periodicals. These are, of course, secondary to catalogs. In the early days when a few large jobbers often took all of the banks a factory could turn out, the factory had no need to advertise. Later, when there were many toy jobbers and retailers to be reached, manufacturers seldom confined their ads to banks alone, but rather tried to cover their entire line. At times when they had a good item, and knew it, they were a little more expansive, as in the case of the ad which ran in “Playthings” in 1906 when the Teddy And The Bear Bank was introduced. Such ads were infrequent, however.

Of far more historical value is the information contained in the text of these magazines of the novelty and toy trade. If one will only wade through hundreds of pages we find personal and trade notes printed from time to time about the toy bank makers, their personnel, and their products. For example, in the May, 1903 “Playthings” we find the following:

This was the perpetual bugbear of the iron bank manufacturers. In the June, 1903 issue of “Playthings” we learn that the situation had grown worse:

“The advance in the cost of iron has affected manufacturers of toy banks to such an extent that several of them have withdrawn their sample lines and will take orders only from their old customers and even these in limited amounts.”

Both manufacturers’ and jobbers’ catalogs are valuable in dating banks, although, of course, unless a complete file is available, it is impossible to ascertain the actual span of manufacture. Not all of these catalogs are dated, although it is usually possible to determine the date by going over the text carefully, consulting city directories, etc. These catalogs, even when they cannot be accurately dated as to the exact year, always give some help in placing a bank.

The average wholesale catalog carried very little detailed information about a bank beyond the name, number, size, a brief description of the action, and such essential information as shipping weights, the number packed in a standard case, etc. In the nineteenth century some jobbers at times also engaged in retail selling, at times by mail, but usually by opening their salesrooms to retail trade for a few weeks before Christmas.

The great catalogs of the mail order houses featured many types of banks over a period of years. These firms frequently offered banks at a little under the usual retail price, as for example, a dollar bank for ninety cents. There were also smaller mail order toy and novelty houses whose catalogs featured banks, as well as large toy shops and department stores whose Christmas catalogs often contained some banks. All of those firms which did a retail business in banks usually gave a fuller description of the bank than did the strictly wholesale lists. Occasionally the orthodox wholesalers, too, relaxed their usual cursory descriptions and waxed enthusiastic. One such listing may be found in a jobber’s catalog of 1876 and concerns the Novelty Bank which had been but recently introduced:

“This beautiful toy bank is made wholly of Iron, is 4 ½ inches wide and deep, and 6 ½ inches high; it has a gentlemanly Cashier, who stands ready at all times, both night and day, the door being opened, to politely wait on customers and safely deposit any money they may place in his hands; and what is more, his character is above reproach; he has an iron constitution; never knows fatigue or impatience, and deposits the money where even he himself cannot meddle with it, and hence he will never become a defaulting Cashier. This Bank is so constructed that the money can be taken out without the Bank being taken apart. Price, per dozen…………………….$12.00”

A few banks were used as subscription premiums by boys’ magazines. Several of the Weeden banks were so offered by “The Youth’s Companion”. Magazines advertising toys as premiums also sold them outright, and were thus also in the mail order toy business. The issues of these magazines listing premiums are interesting material, although there is little to be gleaned from them as compared to the actual catalogs. The Weeden banks were especially popular for premiums, and were probably originally introduced primarily for that purpose.

It is the manufacturers’ own catalogs, however, that provide the best source of data. The most interesting of these are, of course, those of the J. & E. Stevens Co. of Cromwell, Conn. Contrary to popular belief, Stevens did not issue a catalog every year, but, rather, every few years, or intervals of as much as six or seven years. They kept the current catalog up to date in the interim by the use of insert sheets and revised annual price lists.

In this connection, the catalog listing and dating of the Clown And Harlequin Bank is frequently cited. This bank was not listed in the 1906 catalog, No. H-2. The newest bank in that catalog was the Teddy And The Bear Bank, No. 341, which came out in 1906. The Clown And Harlequin Bank, No. 342, did not come out in 1906, but a year or so later, at which time a catalog insert sheet describing the new bank was pasted into the catalog as a page following the one on which the Teddy And The Bear Bank was listed. The next catalog, H-3, issued in 1913, lists the Clown And Harlequin in the regular manner as an integral part of the catalog. Between the two catalogs, so many new mechanical banks had been introduced-North Pole, Goat, Bill E. Grin, Lion Hunter, etc.-that it was found impractical to paste in an insert sheet for each new bank, and the sheets were therefore simply inserted loosely.

The large Stevens sheets, printed in blue to match the catalogs, are, therefore, merely these same catalog insert sheets. Probably they were sent separately to dealers who already had the Stevens catalog on file, so that they could bring their copy up to date. There was also a series of small sheets of slips, varying slightly in size, but averaging about 3" x 6", printed in blue or in reddish brown (the latter are the older), each illustrating and describing a single bank. They were often supplied blank to customers to imprint their own name and address, in which instance no manufacturer’s name appeared on them. In this they were the successors to the earlier colored cards. It may be, however, that they were intended more for jobbers’ imprints for distributing to dealers than for dealers to hand out to retail customers. Many of the slips were printed with the Stevens or National Novelty Corporation (This was the firm name of the toy combine in which Stevens was included during the years of its combine existence, 1903-1912. The 1906 catalog carries “Branch Of National Novelty Corporation” beneath the Steven name. The slips imprinted with the combine name, however, do not mention Stevens. The history of the combine and Stevens’ participation therein is related in Chapter VI.) name and the word “Manufacturers”. They were printed in Middletown, Conn., and as they grew obsolete, the backs of the surplus stocks were used around the Stevens factory for cost sheets and scratch paper.

Stevens also issued a series of special export catalogs for the use of their foreign trade. Like most American iron toy manufacturers, they always had a large export business as there was no German competition whatever in the field of iron toys. Except for a few British and Canadian iron banks and toys, the products of the United States in these categories were supreme in the world’s markets. The Stevens export catalogs do not show a complete selection of their products, but only such items as experience had shown were most suitable for export. It is interesting to note that the mechanical banks which were deemed most suitable for the export trade in the period of roughly 1915 to 1928 were the Cabin, Artillery, Jolly Nigger, Bad Accident, Kicking Mule, Boy Scout Camp, William Tell, Teddy And The Bear, and Foot Ball.

Unfortunately, the Stevens export catalogs are not dated. However, the following export catalogs would seem to be of the same date as the regular catalogs listed in combination with them: export catalog No. 49-regular catalog No. H-4; export catalog No. 50-regular catalog No. 5, and export catalog No. 51-regular catalog No. 6. These export catalogs are an entirely different shape from the regular catalogs and are about 10 ½" wide by 5 ½" high. The regular Stevens catalogs are about 6" wide and 9" high.

Many of the catalogs illustrating banks also contain a world of information on other types of old toys as well. As such catalogs have both an historical and an intrinsic value all their own, their mutilation in any way is inexcusable, and they should never be marked or clipped. It is a simple matter to make photostats of any page at low cost, without harming the catalog.

Chapter III

There is considerable interest in the illustrations and information obtainable from patent records relating to banks. Unfortunately, in the past, the value of such data has been overrated, and the real points where patent papers can be helpful, overlooked. Patent records are of little primary value in determining what banks were made, or how they looked when made, because: many banks were patented which were never actually manufactured;

a number of seemingly different banks were often made under a single patent; some banks were made under several patents; and numerous other banks were actually produced without ever being patented. In addition, as the drawings for patent papers (especially in the very early period of mechanical banks) were often made before any bank was designed for production, their patent paper appearance is often entirely different from the actual manufactured bank. This has led to many fruitless searches for non-existent varieties.

Catalogs, with their illustrations made directly from actual production banks, and the fact that almost every bank which reached the stage of being cataloged was actually made and offered for sale, are far better sources of material than patent records. However, because patent papers were associated with officialdom in the mind of the public, many people, not realizing the conditions which have to be allowed for in patent research, erroneously regarded them as a better source of accurate information than catalogs. In fact, for some time it was even believed that banks and catalogs should be checked against patent papers, rather than patent papers against banks and catalogs.

A United States patent runs for seventeen years, giving the inventor a varying amount of protection depending on how hard rival claims are pressed. Patents are issued only to the person or persons doing the actual inventing. An individual or company helping an inventor financially cannot share in the actual patent, but the inventor may assign all or part of his rights in the patent to whomever he wishes. Sometimes this is done before the patent is issued and the information appears on the patent papers, where it often serves to help identify the firm that made the bank. Generally, however, such assignment was made after the patent was issued. Copies of any patent, that is, the full drawings and printed specifications, may be obtained by anyone at a small charge per copy from the Commissioner of Patents in Washington, D.C.

A few of the patentees of banks still survive, and have given their recollections of their interest in the subject. Some of the banks created by others than professional toy designers came into being in strange ways, as in the case of the Feed The Kitty Bank, patented by Thomas Buel, a New York insurance man, in 1925. In a letter a few years ago, Mr. Buel related the circumstances of his bank invention:

“Some years ago, an automatic shoe shining machine was operated in this city at various locations. One day when I was in the executive office of the shoe machine operators a friend showed me a soap box full of slugs collected from the machines. These slugs were almost entirely made from the tops of soda bottles hammered into the shape of a half moon. The idea occurred to me that they could eliminate these slugs by making it necessary for the penny to roll down an incline and jump a gap, passing through a slot in a baffle plate. With a fixed runway, a given coin takes a given trajectory and will land regularly in practically the same spot, as I proved by experimentation. Therefore, the slugs mentioned above would slide down the track and drop off without landing in position to operate the machine.

“The shoe shine machine company was quite interested in my idea and patent but finally decided that it was not altogether practical because their machines were often on the sidewalk where they were far from level and a precise operation requires the mechanism to be more or less in a vertical position to insure it functions 100%.

“My patent lawyer considered the idea so ingenious and novel that he suggested I try to adapt it to a toy. After a good deal of time and experimentation I designed a toy bank, built a model that actually works and took out an improved patent.”

(This bank was never put in production and placed on the market. Norman Sherwood borrowed Mr. Buel’s original model, and using it as a pattern, cast a few samples from it which he assembled and sold privately.) In the same year that Mr. Buel patented his bank, 1925, a mechanical bank patent was taken out on a Blacksmith Bank by Frederick Plattner of Cleveland. The inventor, believing he had a good thing, planned to manufacture and sell them himself, but was unable to do so because of the difficulties of financing the venture. About fifteen years later, James C. Jones visited the inventor, and the old man, then past eighty, proudly produced his original sample of the bank which he had made of lead.

Another patentee, Walter G. Holmes, who in 1906 had patented a still bank house surrounded by a garden which was described in the patent specifications as “simple and durable in construction and exceedingly ornamental and arranged to stimulate saving by constantly reminding children and other persons of a home that may be owned if money is saved” answered an inquiry as follows:

“I am pleased to reply to your letter.

“Some years ago a friend of mine and I got up a little bank-it was of clay or porcelain. With water in part of it and seed spread on, they sprouted and made a rather attractive little bank. But nothing was ever done with it and none were manufactured. It was just a sort of boyish whim. At the time there was quite a fad for savings banks for the young folks-

“Sorry I do not have a model to send you. “There was a little yard around the bank (a small house) and the grass grew in this yard.”

It may be doubted if many other banks which reached the stage of being patented were merely “boyish whims” and Mr. Holmes’ case is perhaps unique.

The ordinary patent is what is known as a mechanical patent. Actually, it only covers the mechanism of the bank or technical improvements in its construction. Once patented, these features can be applied to any bank. For example, the Jolly Nigger Bank patent naturally covered the Humpty Dumpty as well, as far as the mechanism went. The basic Creedmoor patent of 1877 applied to all of the shooting banks made for the next seventeen years. The internal features of a bank, or methods of construction, once patented are protected no matter what type they are applied to, while the bank illustrated on the patent drawing, as far as its external design goes, is not covered in detail but may be altered in any way, or entirely changed. The Stevens coin trap, for example, which was originally covered as a minor part of two bank patents granted John Hall in 1875, was used on dozens of banks made by Stevens up until almost 1930, long after the patents had expired. (It was also used by other manufacturers after the original patents expired, being used on one bank at least as late as 1933.) As long as the patents ran, however, this trap was protected under them, no matter what type of bank it was used on. The last Stevens bank to use this trap appears to have been the Pay Phone Bank, introduced in 1927.

The second type of patent is the design patent. This has nothing to do with internal construction or mechanism, but concerns the external design of the bank itself. It protects only one identical design of house, or figure, or what-not, that the inventor wishes to use, and theoretically prevents anyone else from manufacturing a similarly appearing article. A number of design patents were granted on mechanical banks, including one in 1875 for the Lilliput Bank, and several in 1875-1876 for various designs of banks for the Centennial, representing the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, etc. Design patents could be obtained for varying periods of time, but the

majority of the early bank design patents were issued for three and a half years, the shortest and least expensive period of protection which could be obtained. Many of the later mechanical banks were protected under both mechanical and design patents.

Prior to 1880, the United States Patent Office required a model of every invention submitted. There were, therefore, inventors’ models of all banks patented before 1880 made and sent to Washington. After 1880 some inventors continued to send models, although no longer required to do so by law. The reason for withdrawing the requirement for a model was that the Patent Office was being overwhelmed with them and had no place to store them. The models which had accumulated were, with the exception of a number which went to the Smithsonian Institute, eventually dispersed into private hands, and as a result, a number of scarce original patent models of mechanical banks are now preserved in private collections.

The earliest mechanical bank patent was No. 70,569, issued in November, 1867, to Kellis Horde of Washington, D.C., for what he described as a “Spring Gun”. Actually the patent called for an alligator or similar figure, operated by blowing in a tube, to emerge from a shelter, take a coin in its mouth, and retire. This was manufactured in tin and is probably the first mechanical bank ever commercially made.

The next year a patent was issued to Abram and George Wright of Clinton, Mass., for a “Toy Safe With Puzzle Lock”. This might be described as related to the mechanical banks, its early date giving it greater interest than if it had been patented a decade later. In order to open the safe it was necessary to turn it upside down so as to allow the knob to engage a locking bar. The lock was not of the combination type, however.

The next patent was the famous Hall’s Excelsior Bank on which John Hall, the most prolific of the early bank inventors, was granted a patent in December, 1869. In his application he described his bank as a “Toy Safe”. The words “mechanical bank” were never used in the industry, and the early inventors each described their creations as they wished and it was so recorded on the patent papers. Thus we find “Toy Money Box”, “Toy Money Safe”, “Toy Money Bank”, “Toy Bank”, and various other variations. Some inventors simply called their banks by names which did not even infer that the article in question was a bank, such as “Toy Toad”, a toad bank patented in 1870. Hall called the Race Track Bank the “Race Course Toy Bank” in his application, but he generally preferred the less specific method of calling his inventions “Toy Money-Box(es)”.

The date of a patent has nothing at all to do with the date at which a bank was first placed on the market, although, naturally, the sooner a patented bank could be marketed, the better, for each passing year saw the patent so much nearer to expiring, and, accordingly, depreciating in value. There was plenty of time for waiting if necessary, however, since a mechanical patent ran for seventeen years. On the other hand, a patent could not be obtained on any article which had been on the market for more than two years before the application was made, and, for obvious reasons, most inventors preferred to apply for their patents at the same time an article was put into production, if they had not done so previously. It generally took months or even a year or more between the date of application and the time the patent was actually granted. Hence the use of such terms on banks as “Patent Applied For” and “Patent Pending”. It is doubtful if many patentable banks were manufactured in advance of patent application, even in the very earliest days of the business.

At times a study of patents is helpful in determining the exact or at least the approximate date at which a specific bank was manufactured, as in the case of the common Tammany Bank or Little Fat Man Bank, as it was also officially called. We know roughly that this bank was manufactured for upwards of forty years, from the mid-1870’s to about 1918. Several patents covered it, the first being issued in 1873 to none other than our old friend, John Hall. (One variety of the Tammany Bank bears the words “Hall’s Patent” on one side where the words “Tammany Bank” usually appear. While probably some of the very earliest banks of this type carried the Hall name, there are many minor varieties common to all types of this bank which seem to indicate that not all specimens with the wording “Hall’s Patent” are necessarily from the earliest production and that patterns with both types of lettering were used interchangeably at various stages of this bank’s long production span. Another variety is without any wording whatever on either side of the chair.) In this patent a trigger is called for to hold the arm in an upright position while the coin was placed in the hand. Such a trigger does not appear on any of the production banks. Of importance in dating, however, is the fact that the bank shown in the drawing, while similar to the production banks in general outline, is still obviously a free drawing of a conception of the bank, and was not drawn from any actual production bank. This clearly indicates that at the time this patent was applied for (April 24, 1873) the bank had not yet been put into production.

On June 3, 1875, another patent on the Tammany bank was issued to Russel Frisbie, superintendent of the Stevens plant. Two new features of this patent were the familiar sliding coin trap found on most Tammany Banks, and a mechanical variation in which one foot of the seated man was used as a trigger to deposit the coin and nod the figure’s head. Most important, the drawing shows a bank which is quite obviously the design actually manufactured, clearly indicating that the Tammany Bank was first placed on the market sometime between April, 1873, and April 17, 1875, the date at which Frisbie filed his application. Possibly some banks were placed on the market for Christmas, 1873, but it seems more likely that it was introduced in 1874. Certainly it was out by Christmas of that year. This is confirmed by the following wording in the Frisbie specifications: “My invention relates to that class of toy banks which consist of the figure of a person seated, the body and chair of which form the receptacle for the coin. Such banks have been heretofore made in which the figure receives the coin in its hand and deposits it in a side opening or pocket by the action of the weight of the coin.”

Why both Hall and Frisbie should have felt that a trigger mechanism (which seems obviously unneeded) should be more desirable than letting the bank perform automatically by the weight of the coin is an interesting but unsolvable point. It is obvious that in actually making the banks, both before and after Frisbie’s patent, they saw that the best way was indeed the simplest, and no Tammany Banks were ever manufactured with either Hall’s or Frisbie’s triggers, although Frisbie’s sliding coin trap was used on not only this but on several other banks.

The 1875 patent, however, was far from the end of the matter. Hall was forever tinkering with, and endeavoring to expand or improve upon his inventions. On October 9, 1877 he received a reissue of his 1873 patent (reissue No. 7,904). In this he made a few more claims, and had a drawing somewhat more closely resembling the actual banks, but among his claims, and clearly showing in the drawings, is his same little wire trigger. In the specifications he noted that he termed this toy “The Tammany Bank”. In 1874 Hall also took out a patent on a very similar bank in general principle, but in which the man stood next to a safe or chest and deposited the coin therein.

If the varied developments of the Tammany Bank seem complicated, however, we should examine the more devious steps through which Mr. Hall contrived or improved, or attempted to contrive or improve, his Excelsior Bank, his Lilliput Bank, and the various combinations thereof. Here, through the patent papers we can trace the numerous experiments and ideas. These banks must have sold very well indeed for Mr. Hall to go rushing off to his patent attorney every time he got another idea. Obviously, in those first flashing days of mechanical bank popularity in the 1870’s, Mr. Hall and his fellow inventors were convinced there would be a fortune in every new design. Quite evidently, too, these were Mr. Hall’s favorites, as might be expected considering that the Excelsior was his first creation.

John Hall was apparently the kind of a man who could become utterly intrigued by one single idea, and squeeze it out beyond all practical limits. The Excelsior and the Lilliput simply fascinated him. Even after these two perfected banks were placed on the market he could never let go of the idea and was continually fussing around with the two designs, altering them, combining them, changing this or that. He patented a double deck Lilliput with the figure on the top deck and a plain slot on the lower deck, a combined Lilliput and Excelsior with several slots and figures, took out a design patent on the Lilliput the way it was finally actually to be made, then a patent covering constructional features for a Lilliput, then another Lilliput patent, followed by another Excelsior patent, etc.

Of course, all of these patents did present certain minor improvements, but the banks, simple and well made, were selling well enough just as they were. We may wonder why the enterprising Mr. Hall spent his time hopefully designing and patenting such pieces as a Lilliput with the hinged Excelsior roof out of which the monkey would pop as the Lilliput man inserted a coin, while a third figure stood around the corner at another side of the bank, likewise willing and able to take your coin for deposit. He seems never to have grown tired of his first ideas and, though he designed other types of banks, he was forever returning to these two types. We can almost picture him making repeated visits to the men who had helped him commercialize his inventions, each time hopefully bearing some new variation (for if he took out half a dozen patents, how many dozens of ideas did he conceive for these banks and never patent?), only to be turned away kindly but firmly with perhaps a request to “please let well enough alone.” (Perhaps this picture is unfair to Mr. Hall. It is merely a supposition, based upon close study of his repeated patents. But from them we can well assume something of the sort).

After the 1870’s, Hall faded from the bank patenting picture, his work done. From then on, aside from numerous individuals who invented only a single bank, several persons or teams were prominent in the field for a number of years to come. Chief among these were James H. Bowen of Philadelphia (Creedmoor, Bull Dog, the large Owl, Kicking Mule, Cat And Mouse-the model resembling a clock, Base Ball, Monkey And Coconut, Two Frogs, Foot Ball, etc.); Charles A. Bailey of Connecticut (Indian Camp, Columbus, Cat And Mouse-the early white metal bank with reclining cat, Shoot The Chute, Perfection Registering, Teddy And The Bear, North Pole, Goat, Hen And Chicken, Tree, etc.); the team of Peter Adams Jr. and Charles G. Shepard (Adams invariably assigned his half of the patent to Walter J. Shepard, one of the owners of the company. On most of these Shepard banks, including the Punch And Judy and the Trick Pony, a design patent, covering the external details of the bank as it was to appear in production was applied for by J. Mueller of Shepard on the same day that Adams and Shepard applied for the mechanical patent. The Shepard Stump Speaker and Uncle Sam Banks were, of course, manufactured under the same mechanical patent. The patent drawing for these banks showed a short, stocky figure, entirely different from either of the production banks. In an old book entitled “Curiosities Of The U.S. Patent Office”, the patent drawing was reproduced and a “balloon” such as cartoonists use, put near the figure’s mouth containing the words “Ah! There! Pass your coins this way and I’ll save it for you.”) who invented for the Shepard Hardware Company (Speaking Dog, Punch And Judy, Trick Pony, Stump Speaker, etc.); and the team of Louis Kyser and Alfred Rex of Philadelphia (Lion And Monkeys, Dog With Tray, Uncle Tom, Organ, etc.); as well as several other individually, or with other inventors (notably Rudolph M. Hunter). Rex, alone, invented the Motor Bank, Feeding Child, and Bucking Buffalo. It will be noted that these above named inventors were responsible for the vast majority of the best known and most popular banks. Some later banks were never patented, either because it was felt a patent was unnecessary (the claims already being covered in earlier ones), or the applications were rejected by the Patent Office after being filed for the same reason. When Charles Bailey was granted two patents in 1910, on the North Pole Bank and the Goat Bank, the end of the great period of bank inventing for actual production was at hand, although technically the era was not over until 1915 when John W. Schmitt patented the Bill E. Grin Bank. Of course, a great many banks were patented all the way up through the 1920’s and even into the 1930’s, but with a few exceptions such as the Kick Inn Bank and the Tank Bank, none was ever put into production.

What had happened was that bank manufacturers were continually striving to create new designs, but the public was growing somewhat harder to please, having a great number of new toys to pick from. The old favorites such as Tammany, Owl, Jolly Nigger, Teddy And The Bear, and William Tell remained excellent sellers. In these designs the manufacturers had found suitable items that the public wanted in large quantities, and after 1920 they abandoned the attempts to create a demand for new styles and concentrated on the tried and true sellers. Despite their lower selling price, fifty cents each, such banks as Bill E. Grin and the Goat did not prove more popular than the larger and more expensive banks, although, of course, great quantities of them were made and sold.

A number of American banks were patented (registered) in England after being patented in this country, as certain banks sold in large quantities over there. Such banks are generally marked with their British registration number as well as their American patent date. A few banks originally invented in England were also patented in this country, chiefly those invented by Robert Eastwood Starkie of Burnley, England, who was apparently the chief British inventor of mechanical banks. The English versions of the Creedmoor and Jolly Nigger Banks were very popular over there, and seem to have sold in fairly large quantities in Canada as well. A few types of mechanical banks appear to have been manufactured in Canada, but little definite information is obtainable concerning these.

The field of bank patent research still presents some interesting possibilities, especially in shedding light on dates and changes in plans and even finished designs. Lack of space prevents citing further instances of the results of the study of patent records here, but in Chapter VI will be found some additional notes on the subject, in connection with an attempt to establish as definitely as possible the identity of the first iron mechanical bank actually manufactured.

Chapter IV

BANK NAMES, AND CARICATURE IN BANKS

How did these banks get their names? Or, rather, what was the special connotation implied by each individual name to the boys (and their fathers, mothers, aunts, and uncles, who did the actual buying of the banks) that made so many of them so potent a selling feature in its own era? Some names are, of course, so obviously mere descriptions of the bank as to require no comment. Dentist, Horse Race, Owl, Bull Dog, Bowling Alley, etc. are all what we might call self-evident names, but there are many others whose meanings are obscure, or which to the present generation do not carry quite the same significance as they did to our fathers and grandfathers.

Was the Hall’s Excelsior so named because as the first mechanical bank it thereby excelled all previously manufactured banks which were of the non-mechanical type, or because of the then current popularity of Longfellow’s poem, “Excelsior!”? As a matter of fact, the Excelsior Bank was listed in the jobbers’ catalogs of the 1870’s and 1880’s simply as the Cashier Bank, and no listing has been found as the Excelsior Bank! From this it would seem that the Excelsior name held no special meaning for the wholesale trade. Perhaps, however, these other names were merely used later, after larger and more elaborate bank types were being made and the name Excelsior had thereby lost its original implication of superiority and merely remained cast on the bank itself, a memento of the brief period in which this little iron building with its monkey cashier was the strongest and safest bank in toyland!

In the case of the Hall’s Excelsior Bank, we must admit failure to identify certainly the meaning of the term. In later years, Stevens manufactured a number of banks which they designated as members of their “Excelsior Series”, and some of which bore that wording on their castings. This series had no relation whatsoever to the original Hall’s Excelsior Bank and the term was used in the 1890’s and early 1900’s. The banks in this series, which included the Speaking Dog, Artillery, Mason Bank, etc., were all designs which had originally been manufactured by the Shepard Hardware Company, and subsequently taken over by Stevens and incorporated into their bank line. The use of the term “Excelsior Series” was apparently originated by Shepard as a distinguishing mark in the 1880’s, and used by them for some years prior to Stevens’ acquisition of the line. The castings of the banks in this series are all somewhat heavier than most mechanical banks, and no doubt suggested the name to the series as designating a superior construction. Some Shepard banks, such as the Jolly Nigger and Humpty Dumpty were not included in this series. When Stevens took over the line, by reworking the patterns, they changed the coin traps on some of the banks from the heavy oblong traps which locked with a key to the standard round Stevens trap. The signs of this conversion are plainly noticeable on the later specimens of such banks as the Artillery.

With Hall’s Lilliput Bank the meaning is easier for the historian to trace. At the time it appeared the public was more or less “Lilliputian conscious”. Toy shops or children’s clothing stores were known as Lilliput or Lilliputian Bazaars, and anything small, particularly figures of people, was likely to be connected with the fabled Lilliputians.

Toy manufacturers of the 1870’s were as wide awake to the selling value of popular names as the makers of today who name toys after popular comic strip characters. Then, as now, this subtle appeal was not to the child user as much as to the adult purchaser, who, while thinking he was buying the toy because it would appeal to his child, was actually making the purchase because it had appealed to him as something he believed suitable and attractive for his child. Certainly few young children knew or cared about the implications of such names as Lilliput or Tammany, but their parents did, and that was what counted with the manufacturers of toys.

The Creedmoor Bank is another example of nineteenth century connotation in a name which may seem meaningless today. Creedmoor was the camp of the New York National Guard on Long Island. From this name, originally known generally only in New York State, came a whole line of “Creedmoor” articles identified with shooting. There were Creedmoor targets, Creedmoor air rifles, Creedmoor target games, and others. By the late 1870’s the name Creed- moor was connected with shooting in the minds of millions of people all over the country who may have had no idea of its origin or ever heard of the Long Island camp. When the first shooting bank was patented (in 1877) and placed on the market it was only natural that the manufacturers should take advantage of the value of the name Creedmoor, and use it on the bank. The bank was thus named, not for a particular camp on Long Island, but rather because of the nationwide association of the word with shooting.

Today the influence of the comic strips on all sorts of toys is immense. Popular cartoon characters appear on a wide variety of toys. Other toys attain wide sales by merely being named after such newspaper or movie characters. The popularity of each such hero is measured by the number of stamping sets, sweaters, masks, games, wrist watches, dolls and other articles that are marked in connection with the name. Back in the era of the mechanical bank’s greatest popularity the comic strips were more subdued and human, generally funnier, and did not deal with the horrors, impossible adventures, and bloodshed which characterize so many of the present day. Boys smiled at the antics of Buster Brown, Happy Hooligan, Foxy Grandpa, the Katzenjammer Kids, and others, all of which with a few exceptions such as the last named, have been unable to keep pace with modern comic strip technique. Many of these characters were honored on toys, including a number of still banks, and a few mechanicals.

The banks of this type generally date from the 1903-1912 period when the comics were first becoming popular in their modern form. One of them portrayed a stout Mamma Katzenjammer with Hans under one arm and Fritz under the other, who rolled her eyes when the coin was inserted.

Another comic strip mechanical bank is the Shoot The Chute Bank, sometimes incorrectly called “Shoot The Shoots”, which featured Buster Brown and his dog, Tige, in a boat which shot down the chute, putting the coin into the bank, and meeting disaster at the bottom. Buster Brown, with his Elbert Hubbard haircut, was one of the most widely known comic strip characters of the early twentieth century. He was featured with the inevitable Tige in several iron still banks as well as in this Stevens mechanical. Today he exists in memory only, save as the name and trademark of a popular brand of shoes, whose manufacturer, like Stevens, took advantage of the popularity of Buster with thousands of boys in that bygone era.

Uncle Remus, at the peak of his fame in the 1890’s and early 1900’s, was another popular character featured in a mechanical bank. Of such mythical personages as The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe, Punch And Judy, Little Red Riding Hood, and Santa Claus, all of whom gained further fame through their reproduction in the metal of mechanical banks, no further reference is required here.

Two of the most interesting mechanical banks of all are the Tammany and the Freedman’s. They are intriguing from any standpoint, the former probably the commonest of all mechanicals; the latter, one of the rarest, the most unusual, and the most elaborate. In the matter of their names and the stories of them they lose none of this interest.

Let us consider the Tammany first. As pointed out in the preceding chapter, the Tammany was first made in 1874 or 1875. Having enjoyed a popularity beyond all expectations, it was dropped from the line for some reason in the 1890’s. However, the Stevens Company quickly found they had discontinued one of their best numbers, and it reappeared in the line in the first years of the present century, exactly the same as before except that it was now cataloged as the “Little Fat Man” (the quotation marks are Stevens’ and it is possible the name had some special meaning in the early 1900’s). At any rate, the new title gave no political offense, although the actual banks still bore the name “Tammany Bank” on the castings. It was manufactured until the early 1920’s, thus giving it an overall lifespan of almost fifty years.

As the commonest of all mechanical banks, it was continually turning up, and provided the myth-makers with material for a veritable field-day. No sooner was there any interest shown in mechanical banks than they were busy concocting a beauty of a story for this bank, a story which remains widely accepted today. Be it known, they announced, that this is The Boss Tweed Bank, that the figure seated in the chair is a perfect replica of William Marcy Tweed, and, furthermore, this little bank, illustrating in a small way the doings of said W.M. Tweed had more to do with the investigation, prosecution, and conviction of W. Marcy Tweed than all of the Nast cartoons put together!

As further confirmation of this story, they pointed out that the figure in the Tammany Bank was portrayed seated in a chair, for hadn’t Boss Tweed originally been a chair maker? In their eyes it was certainly a peculiar circumstance that a man should sit in a chair unless he had been a chair maker!

This is one of those stories that are so good, it actually hurts to explode it. Sad to relate, the figure in the bank is not Tweed, was not copied from Tweed, and bears no resemblance at all to Tweed. Real persons were caricatured in mechanical banks at times, but Tweed was not one of them, although the bearded boss was portrayed on a still bank. The idea of the bank, as clearly shown by the name given it, was suggested by the widely publicized doings of the Tammany Ring (or Tweed Ring) but the bank was conceived and manufactured after Tweed had fallen. Witness: in July, 1871, investigation and prosecution was undertaken under the leadership of Samuel J. Tilden (who was actually the subject of a portrait doll reproduction in a mechanical walking toy made by Ives), in 1872 Tweed was indicted, and in 1873 he was convicted, all before the Tammany Bank saw the light of day. All the bank did was to take advantage of the resulting publicity and thereby increase its sales. Tweed died in 1878, but the Tammany Bank went marching on.

The bank was certainly not designed to resemble Tweed, who had a full beard and a very long, distinctively shaped face, although, of course, the design was intended to typify a Tammany politician of the day. In an 1876 jobber’s catalog it is described as “The ‘Boss’ or Tammany Bank”, but the reference is purely general. Tweed’s features were too well known the country over at that time to have permitted any adult American, and most boys, to believe that the bank portrayed him. While the bank actually resembled no real personage, it may not have been difficult, however, for some children to acquire the idea that it was Tweed, in that era when boys drove their fathers frantic with fear that they were heading straight where Tweed had gone by mouthing over and over again:

Turning now to the Freedman’s Bank, we find that a misunderstanding of the contemporaneous meaning of this title has led to a very serious error in dating the bank. The bank was not made at the close of the Civil War, as many still believe, but actually came out in either 1878 or 1879. The pre-dating was due to lack of knowledge of the real meaning of the name and the consequent belief that it was used only during and immediately after the Civil War, plus the usual human desire to make the bank seem as old as possible. Less understandable have been the actions of those who, while now fully aware of the true age of this bank, have endeavored to perpetuate the legend of its earlier date, and the story that it was specifically designed as a political satire on the actions of newly freed slaves.

The term “Freedmen” came into use in the north quite early during the war and was used more or less interchangeably with “contraband”, a term originated by Major General Benjamin F. Butler when he first received fleeing slaves while in command of Fortress Monroe. After the Emancipation Proclamation, “Freedmen” became far the more preferred term and following the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, Congress set up the Freedmen’s Bureau (There is a small wooden still bank, made in the form of a chest of drawers or bureau, and lettered “Freedmen’s Bureau”. It is believed by some, although there exists no substantiation at this time, that this bank was used soon after the Civil War as a means of inducing savings for the aid of the ex-slaves. The name may, of course, simply represent a play on words.) for the aid and protection of the former slaves. For the next two decades, in the north at least, the term “Freedmen” was frequently used in speaking of Negroes.

The word “Freedman’s” on the Secor bank, therefore, had no direct reference to newly freed slaves, and considering the offensive names given to later banks such as the Jolly Nigger Bank, it will be seen that the name was not intended as a particular disparagement.

As for General Butler, he was not only the subject of an Ives mechanical walking portrait doll, but, in 1884, when he ran for President on the Greenback-Labor and Anti-monopolist tickets he was caricatured in a fairly large iron still bank as a green-backed frog clutching a wad of greenbacks. The head of the frog was an excellent representation of Butler, and the bank was lettered “Bullion and yachts for myself and my friends, dry bread and greenbacks for the people.”

Not all caricatures of real persons in banks was unfavorably directed against them, however. The Teddy And The Bear Bank, which enjoyed an enormous popularity from its introduction in 1906 right up to the late 1920’s, is an example of pleasant caricature. The bank, which sported a good representation of Theodore Roosevelt was plainly labeled and cataloged as representing the illustrious Teddy, then President of the United States. Teddy and his inevitable connection with the bear was already widely known and publicized. This connection originated when the President was west on a hunting trip and refused to shoot a small captive bear. A newspaper cartoonist was present and used the scene as the subject of a cartoon. Hence the inevitable association of Theodore Roosevelt and bears forever after. The “Teddy Bear”, most important and lasting result of this incident, remains a standard article of toy commerce to this day and shows no sign of losing any of its popularity.

The bank does not represent Teddy hunting a bear. It portray him aiming at a tree trunk and, in the words of the Stevens catalogs, “as the coin strikes the game it springs a surprise on Teddy.” The bear jumps up out of the top of the tree trunk!

A far less common bank, the Lion Hunter, appeared a few years later during Teddy’s hunting trip in Africa. This bank design was evidently suggested by the trip, although the hunter only vaguely resembled Teddy and all mention of his name was omitted from the bank. This bank proved far less popular than the Teddy And The Bear Bank, and was discontinued before the latter.

The North Pole Bank appeared at the time when the Peary-Cook controversy over who had actually discovered the pole was raging. The designers purposely omitted any personal characterization from this bank so as to be able to sell it to adherents of both sides. Instead, the bank was decorated with innocuous Eskimos, seals, walrus, sleds, etc., and the action feature was an American flag which popped out of the top, presumably over the pole, when a coin was inserted. This is an example of a lack of any personal caricature for a definite purpose.

Bismark is quite definitely caricatured in a pig bank of the late 1870’s. When a coin is inserted, Bismark pops up out of the pig’s back. This bank was first made specifically lettered “Bismark Pig”; later versions, still retaining the figure of Bismark, are named “Tricky Pig” or unlettered, however. One of the most recent of all mechanical banks is the modern Hitler Pig Bank, designed to aid savings for War Bonds, and brought out in 1942. This bank is made of a pulp composition in the shape of a pig with Hitler’s face, and grunts when a coin is inserted.

A number of other mythical, semi-mythical, or historical characters have been featured in banks. Uncle Sam is represented in the large mechanical bank in which he drops a coin in his carpet bag, and also in a small bust bank. William Tell is another. The Jonah And The Whale Bank is an example of a Biblical story applied to mechanical banks, and there are two entirely different banks based on this episode. There are “type” banks too, showing characters which are neither mythical nor historical, but, rather, stock types. An instance of this is found in the Stump Speaker Bank. The John Bull Bank is a bank which is similar to the Uncle Sam in concept, if not in actual style and action. Other bank type classifications might readily be made. In animals, bears, frogs, and elephants seem more popular for mechanicals than either the thrifty squirrel (represented by only two banks) or the traditional pig bank, although there are several mechanical banks featuring pigs in their designs. Owls and rabbits are also popular.

The vast majority of mechanical banks were constructed of cast iron, and were made in an era when iron was far more generally used for toys than in recent years. This condition was due to several factors, namely, the lack of better and cheaper materials and methods which have lately become more popular in toy manufacture, the cheapness of iron itself, and, similarly, the low cost of labor at the time. The last was important, for any cast iron article requires a certain amount of final hand finishing and fitting. As the costs of labor and material increased, banks were found to be unprofitable to manufacture in some cases, or at least less profitable than other lines of cast iron toys which required less handling.

Not all of the old mechanical banks were made entirely of cast iron. Some of the earlier types combined other materials with the iron; Hall’s Excelsior has a wooden figure and bench, the Race Course Bank has stamped tin horses, and a few banks were made entirely of tin. Aside from these there were other banks which employed metals other than iron for various parts, including brass and white metal alloys. Other materials were used freely, and in various combinations, when the bank was built up rather than cast. The Weeden banks are all made of light metal stampings, similar in quality and finish to similar stamped parts on other Weeden toys such as steam engines and steam trains. In addition, they combine a wooden back-piece with the stampings. Weeden has used some very nice iron castings on some of their toys, but they never manufactured a cast iron bank.

The Freedman’s Bank, constructed chiefly of wood and with a figure dressed in clothes, and using metal only for the head, feet, frame, and works, followed the general construction of Secor’s other mechanical toys, rather than the usual mode of mechanical bank construction. A few further examples of departures from the normal type are the Winner Bank, which is of sheet metal, the Kick Inn Bank, of the early 1920’s, which is entirely of wood, and a half dozen or so banks manufactured from stamped lithographed metal which provided them not only with shape but with finish and color in one stamping operation. All of these are, of course, exceptions from the general trend, for the vast majority of mechanical banks were of cast iron construction.

Mechanical banks were mass production toys in the strictest sense of the term. Once a design was settled upon, thousands and thousands were turned out, each identical. They were never individual creations, or the products of what was even seventy years ago a highly developed and extensive American toy industry. It may be stated as a certainty that even the rarest bank today was originally manufactured by the thousands, and, of course, banks like the Tammany were made by tens and tens of thousands over a period of years. Any exceptions to this are banks which were never actually put into production, and of which a small quantity was made up as samples or for a special private purpose.

The actual process of making iron castings is simple. Briefly, it consists of inserting a pattern which is identical with the desired casting in a box of sand, and then removing the pattern, leaving a cavity in the sand the exact size and shape of the pattern. Molten iron is then poured into the cavity, and, when cooled, removed, giving a casting which, except for slight shrinkage, is a perfect reproduction of the original pattern. The process is carried on repeatedly, using the sand and pattern over and over again. Obviously, this is merely an outline of the process, and the actual work presents a great many additional problems.

In the first place, the pattern must be made by an expert pattern maker so that it can be easily removed from the sand without disturbing the cavity in any way. In the argot of the foundry, it must “draw” from the mold easily. Because of this, they are limited to the elaborateness of shape and detail which can be had in a single casting. A skilled pattern maker knows just what can and what cannot be done. Sometimes an original design must be altered considerably before a satisfactory pattern can be made. Likewise, hardly any part of great thickness would be cast in one piece, but would be cast in as many pieces as foundry necessity dictates. The separate parts are then later assembled to form the desired shape. The mules in the Kicking Mule or Bucking Mule Banks could not be conveniently cast in one piece; consequently they were made in two halves which were joined together to form the completed animals. This method, which is standard foundry practice, is not only easier to cast, but saves considerable metal which would be wasted if the castings were made solid. The base of the early model Trick Dog Bank was cast in five separate pieces for this reason. Later on, it was possible to cast the base in a single hollow piece by redesigning certain patterns.

If you will study the two models of the Trick Dog Bank you will see that the base on the old model is perfectly square, and the lettering and perforations are formed on the sides by means of the formation of the castings themselves. This was possible because each side was cast separately as a flat piece of metal. On the later, or so called “modern” model, all the lettering and perforation has been removed, leaving the sides perfectly smooth, and the wording transferred to the top of the base. In addition, instead of the sides, ends, and top being perfectly square, like a box, the sides and ends are set at a slight angle and the length and width at the base is greater than at the top. This construction permits a pattern to be placed in the sand, top downwards, and then removed easily, and therefore allows the casting to be made hollow in a single piece instead of five pieces, with a consequent saving in time and metal. The hollow center of the casting is obtained by the use of a core piece, around which the molten iron flows.

Without going into a lengthy discussion of the intricacies of foundry practice, it should be explained that small castings (and many fairly large ones) are cast a number at a time. Instead of making one casting at each pouring, a slow job at best, the pattern is made with a number of duplicate pieces, six, or ten, or twelve, or any practical number, and accordingly makes a similar number of identical cavities in the sand. When the iron is poured it forms a number of duplicate castings at once. All castings require a certain amount of finishing. When the metal is poured into the sand it runs through a hole in the top of the mold into the cavity formed by the pattern. Naturally, this hole fills up with metal, too, as well as the connecting channels between castings which are cast in groups, and when the castings are removed, this excess metal must be broken off carefully. The patterns are designed so as to facilitate this by making the metal very thin at the point of breakage. The excess metal is later melted down and used again.

The hand work on the bank must be kept to an absolute minimum for every operation has been calculated in advance to the fraction of a cent, and so much has been allowed for finishing each casting. The individual finisher has absolutely nothing to do with the design of the bank. He, or she, merely takes the casting, files or grinds smooth any rough spots, punches through any perforations that need clearing, and passes it along. The idea that banks were individual creations is so fantastic that one wonders how it ever began.

As pointed out repeatedly in this volume, banks are manufactured toys, made by mass production methods and by the thousands. Each bank of its type is identical with all others of the same type. All the designing and planning is long past before the pattern is first set into the sand. Various changes or improvements in design from time to time were not the work of individual workmen, but the result of planned changes in the patterns. In fact, the workman could do very little to change or improve a bank even if he had the slightest desire to do so. When the casting reached him from the foundry room it was already in its final form. He could neither add nor subtract nor change. His job was to finish the casting, or assemble it, or paint it, or pack the finished bank. About all he could really possibly have done would be to spoil the casting in some way, by filing or grinding away too much, or breaking it, and, needless to say, he was very careful not to let that happen!

The actual design of the bank started long before the patterns were begun. A skilled pattern maker could probably have made up a perfect set of patterns from drawings for a simple house bank, but a complicated bank like the Creedmoor or Uncle Sam, requiring many variously shaped parts and castings is a different matter. Considerable drawing, experimenting, and making of various pre-production models and handmade samples took place before the bank was ready for the pattern makers. These samples were made of various materials; wood, plaster, wax, or soft metal, or combinations of these materials. Great care had to be taken in planning the mechanism and its various component parts, as well as provision for external moving parts. In most plants, of course, this work was done under the direction of the head pattern maker himself. The patterns might have been made directly from the samples, or an original set made out of carved hardwood. In either case, this acted as the “master” or “king” pattern. From this a more permanent master pattern would be cast in bronze, or sometimes brass. This in turn would be perfectly smooth by carefully hand filing every surface, for the more work put in upon the patterns, the more perfect would be the production castings, and the less finishing would they require.

All of this preliminary experimental work usually cost about $2,500.00 or more for each bank design. As the profit on each bank was only a few cents, perhaps a dime at most, it will readily be seen from this why the manufacturer had to be assured of selling thousands and thousands of any one bank before he would undertake its production. The cost of the experimental work had to be absorbed over and above the actual costs of production before the maker would have any profit on the bank!

The final master patterns were used to cast a number of working patterns, from which the actual production castings would be made. It is these duplicate working patterns that were used to make up the working patterns that cast a number of identical pieces at once. The master patterns were stored away under lock and key, and ony brought out and used in the event that additional working patterns were required. New working patterns could not be cast from old working patterns, as the shrinkage of metal would make them smaller, and the resulting castings would be again smaller and could not be used in conjunction with other castings from the original set of working patterns. A casting is always slightly smaller than the pattern from which it is cast. Iron shrinks 3/32" to 1/8" per foot, brass shrinks 3/16" to 3/72" per foot, and aluminum shrinks 7/32" to a full 1/4" per foot.

Thus, depending on how many patterns were to be used, allowance had to be made for shrinkage for each one. If an original wax pattern, a master brass pattern, and then a working pattern were made, allowance had to be made for three shrinkings, including that in the final iron castings. The pattern makers had to figure shrinkage on every part, and allow for it on every drawing and pattern they made. This became even more complicated when two metals with different shrinkage rates were to be employed in combination with each other in the same bank. This, of course, happened only occasionally, as in the case of the Lion And Monkeys Bank, which employed both iron and brass.

The patterns from which the banks were cast are, of course, of tremendous historical interest. It is sad to relate that early visitors to the foundries frequently found few actual banks, but often the patterns were still around, and in some cases they passed into collectors’ hands. Not realizing that these patterns as such were of tremendously greater value than the production banks themselves, collectors and dealers made these patterns up into banks, painted, and sold or displayed as ordinary banks. Fortunately, a few were rescued by collectors who realized just what they had, but all too many were lost forever (unless their true identities should accidentally come to light) and an enormous amount of rare bank historical material gone beyond recall. The few which survived unpainted in their original brass finish are known as “pattern banks”, meaning banks which were assembled from original patterns.

Even rarer than pattern banks are the handmade sample which have turned up on rare occasions. Naturally, as there was only one of each such piece, they have a historical value beyond comparison. Those most generally found appear to be of banks whose manufacture was contemplated but never carried out. To attempt to grade a handmade sample comparatively with production banks is ridiculous and impossible. They are two entirely different things. The handmade samples are above production banks, even above patterns. Obviously, to obtain this position they must be authentic-made in the past with a legitimate purpose of eventual production in mind. Mechanical banks are manufactured articles and in order to have any value of any kind they must be made up by manufacturers (or, in the case of samples, by manufacturers or inventors), just as a collectable postage stamp must be issued by a government.

The majority of mechanical banks were painted, usually in bright colors and with a great deal of decoration. There are a few exceptions. For a while, Stevens put out the Artillery Bank in two styles, the No. 23 which was electro-plated, and the No. 24, which was painted. The appearance of the copper plated bank gave rise to the story that these banks were cast entirely in brass or bronze. The plated variety did not sell well and was dropped a number of years before the painted model. A few banks, such as the Educated Pig and Shoot The Chute were nickel plated. This finish was extensively used on still banks and safes, but did not attain wide popularity on mechanicals. When smooth and polished it presents a very nice finish, but when exposed to the air and allowed to dull it is frequently confused with unpainted iron. The Called Out Bank was painted a dull khaki color, and this color, coupled with the general uncertainty and misinformation circulated about this bank caused some to reach the conclusion that these banks were all unpainted bronze pattern castings, and hence the theory that it was never actually put in production.

The Judd Company offered a choice of several solid color lacquer finishes on many of their banks, under different numbers for each finish. The finishes were known as copper bronze, ebony and gold, maroon, and dark antique. Some banks were only manufactured in one color, while others such as the Dog On Turntable were made in all four, and in some cases offered to the trade in the full range at the same time. Some Judd banks may also have been made in a regular painted finish, although the design and small details of the castings were not originally intended for this type of decoration. Most existing banks of this type actually appear to have been privately repainted, from lacquer finish originals.

Most banks were painted by hand. In the Stevens factory ten or twelve girls were employed as painters on a piece work basis, and they received on the average a penny for each bank painted although, of course, this varied depending on the bank itself. Some of the old mechanical banks are outstanding for their variety of color, and the delicacy of line of the finishing work. The painters did the rough coloring work, and special decorators or “stripers” did the delicate lining, eyes, and other small details. The stripers grew especially skilled at this type of work. One striper at Stevens, Kate P. Ralph, went to work at the plant on March 14, 1865 and celebrated her seventy-sixth birthday in 1924 by walking six miles between her home and the factory, as was her usual custom. During all the years of her life she had lived in the same house, and had been engaged in the decorating department at Stevens for most of the time she worked there. Not long before her seventy-sixth birthday, however, she had transferred to the packing department.

At the Stevens plant the painting and striping of the banks was done on the top floor of one of the buildings, under the eaves. If a striper accidentally spoiled a bank, she would try and get it hidden up in the eaves on one of the beams before the foreman had a chance to see it. A spoiled bank meant several dozen banks had to be striped without pay. In later years, many banks were found in this attic in apparently brand new condition except that each piece had some minor defect in its painting. Collectors have them now.

Cost prices were figured on a hundred pieces, and from surviving cost sheets and records we can see exactly what these banks cost to produce, as well as the detailed breakdown of these figures. In the Tree Bank, 263 lbs. of iron @ .015 per pound came to $3.94, molding was $3.85, handling $1.31, springs and screws .40, “putting up” $1.80, painting and striping $1.85, paint .25, and “trying” and packing .35. In addition, there were other charges for boxes and cases, freight and cartage, and an allowance of 33-1/3% and 10%. The total cost of a hundred Tree Banks was $30.02 or .3002 apiece. The Hen And Chicken Bank cost .3848 each, and the Indian Camp, .4281 each.

“Trying” was probably the most unique operation in the manufacture of the bank, although no doubt those who did it soon became thoroughly bored with their jobs. It consisted simply of trying or testing each finished bank just prior to packing it in its individual wooden box, to see that the mechanism would operate properly.

The molders who did the actual casting received fourteen to seventeen dollars a week, and worked ten or eleven hours a day in the foundry. In their hands rested the actual casting technique, learned by long experience, yet often dependent upon many factors beyond their personal control. Some of the banks were designed so elaborately
that even with the best of patterns the molders had trouble in producing any quantity of good castings. The Jumping Rope Bank, manufactured in the late 1890’s, was an example of this. The castings were unusually intricate and complicated, and-but wait, let one of the old time molders at the Stevens foundry tell the story in his own words:

“We had more darned trouble making that there Skippin’ bank than any other in the foundry. They wanted to get somethin’ up that was real fancy, but they ran into plenty of trouble, they did. With all that there fancy grill work they spoilt plenty of castin’s afore they got some good ones out of them. It got so bad they figgered it was a losin’ proposition and they cut out makin’ ‘em altogether when they boosted the price of them and then they didn’t sell ‘cause they was too high priced.”

The little village of Cromwell nestles quietly in the Connecticut hills. Nearby, hidden deep in a little valley all its own, is a group of buildings, most of them of wood, and several of them in use for over a full century’s span. This is the plant of the J. & E. Stevens Company, the oldest toy manufacturer in the United States; both the original and the most prolific manufacturer of mechanical banks.

Today the valley-known locally as Frog Hollow-is quiet, though the Stevens plant is still running as it has for decades past. On the sides of the valley and on its rim live the Stevens workmen, some from families whose ancestors four generations back have worked at Stevens. In other houses dwell old workers who have poured their last casting, polished their last bank, but in whose minds the memories of former days at Stevens are still bright. Even on clear days, a cool mist hangs over the valley, hangs over the ancient trees, the red two and three story buildings with their gable roofs, the brick foundry, and over the antiquated hand pump standing in the center of the road where it widens as it runs through the group of buildings.

The plant cannot be seen from outside the valley. The casual motorist might pass close by without suspecting its existence. A few old houses dot the rim, the road descends, easily at first, and the other side of the valley is seen through the mist. Then the road falls sharply, the Stevens buildings become visible and in a few moments are reached by the ancient dirt path of Nooks Hill Road, which today is almost the same as when, seventy-odd years ago, six-horse drays dragged the first load of Mr. Hall’s iron mechanical banks upwards toward the rim, urged on by the shouts of sweaty teamsters.

On the front of the office building is a sign, kept bright by repeated painting, “The J. & E. Stevens Company”. Nearby, faded by the elements, unpainted for many years, but still legible is a second sign, written in letters whose archaic style proclaims their origin in a bygone era, “Iron Toys & c.” This, then, is the home of the mechanical toy bank, its birthplace and the place where for sixty years more types and larger quantities of such banks were produced than at any other plant. In fact, it may be stated with reasonable surety that the total production of banks by Stevens, for their own line and on contract for others, exceeded the combined output of all other manufacturers.

It is not so long since the last mechanical banks of Stevens make were turned out; 1928 marked the end of a long and prosperous era when the charm of the mechanical bank finally gave way to cap pistols that today make up the normal production of the plant. However, it is not nearly as long as the casual inquirer might imagine since Stevens last made mechanical banks, it is many, many years since the first piece was turned out in these buildings.

The company was originally established in 1843 by two brothers, John and Elisha Stevens. It is not true that they founded the company as a toy business. Hardware products, coat and hat hooks, surplice pins, door buttons, shutter screws, axes, tack and shoe hammers, and similar goods were their main products for many years. Nevertheless, some toys and toy parts were made there at a very early date. Within ten years of the founding of the plant, miniature sad iron stands and some half a ton of iron wheels for children’s toy wagons were made per week. (“Centennial Address”-of Middletown and its parishes including Cromwell-by David D. Field, D. D., Middletown, William B. Casey, 1853. This earliest known reference to Stevens notes that “This kind of wheel was, until a very short time since, wholly imported; now, however, those of homemake have, owing to their lesser price, and equal quality, driven the foreign make almost entirely out of the market.”) At this period Stevens employed about forty hands, and did an annual business of $35,000 to $40,000.

Beyond the buildings at the Stevens plant is a pool of cool, clear water, a fair sized lake in fact, still inhabited by the hordes of frogs which gave the valley its name. It is apparently a natural body of water, situated on a typical New England flowing stream which supplied power for the plant, although certain of the old wood cuts of the plant in some of the Stevens catalog show it surrounded by a stone dam or coping several feet in height. A railroad branch line once also ran through the valley, close to the plant to permit ready loading of freight cars. This has been abandoned for a number of years, although traces of the old right of way may still be discerned by the prowling visitor, bent on locating all of the sites and landmarks of former days.

The Stevens office threshold has been crossed countless times by Russel Frisbie and Charles A. Bailey, not to forget John Hall himself, or a dozen lesser figures in toy bankdom. At times the valley has certainly seen J. H. Bowen, up from Philadelphia for a hurried visit, or Elisha G. Selchow from New York. It has seen the growth of the mechanical bank idea, and if these walls, these worn work benches, these very tools that helped make the banks could only speak, what facts they could give us! How the mists surrounding the early history of the mechanical bank industry would lift and clear away! But the mists still hang low over the valley, the mists of nature mingling with the mists of bank history.

As is usually the case with careful and diligent research, probing, searching, picking up an odd fact here, a connecting link there, will bring facts to light, but the more that is uncovered, the more the historian desires to learn. A limit finally seems reached when we leave fact behind and start exhausting the possibilities of legends and traditions. There will, it is to be feared, always be mists of one kind or another, hanging over Stevens’ valley.

Early brief accounts of Stevens history which have been published in various articles on banks contain little of value. For the most part, they may all be dismissed as built up on pure conjecture, as there is no one remaining at the plant today who was there before 1890, nor any surviving catalogs or printed material much before that date. No members of the Stevens family have been connected with the company for many years. Starting as a Stevens family affair, it developed into a Frisbie family affair, for, in turn, three generations of the Frisbie family have played an important part in the operation of the company. At this writing Russell Frisbie, the grandson and namesake of that earlier Russel Frisbie who guided the affairs of the company many years ago, is superintendent.

The Stevens brothers were still living when the elder Frisbie entered the company in 1866 as general superintendent, designer, and inventor. Two years later, in 1868, Edward S. Coe, a nephew of the Stevens brothers also became associated with the firm in the capacity of bookkeeper. He became treasurer in 1872, and, finally, president in 1898, retaining both positions until 1907. Control of the company was gradually acquired by the Frisbies, and Russel’s son, Charles B. Frisbie, followed Coe as president of Stevens. Coe, who died August 10, 1926, was subsequently connected with local banks, and with the Kirby Mfg. Co., toy manufacturers of Middletown.

The coming of Russel Frisbie resulted in a marked increase in the firm’s toy manufacturing activities and in their entry into the field as manufacturers in the modern sense. It has been stated that prior to the Civil War, Stevens engaged not only in the manufacture of toys but also in the jobbing and importing of toys of other makes, but there exists no basis in fact for this expanded version of their activities.

There is not a particle of direct evidence regarding Stevens’ entry into the manufacture of mechanical banks in existence. However, after research extending into every available source, the author believes that the following may be accepted as definite:
            1) That the first banks made at the Stevens plant; namely, the Excelsior and the Race Course, as well, possibly, as the Lilliput and Tammany (which came a little later), were not manufactured as Stevens products, but were made on contract, either for the inventor, John Hall, or for the Boston jobbing firm of Cutter, Hyde & Co., who had exclusive sales control of the Race Course Bank upon its introduction in 1871.
            2) That this making of banks on contract marked Stevens’ first attempt to manufacture mechanical banks, although it is possible they had previously made iron still banks. 3) Observing the success of the first Hall banks, Stevens began to manufacture other designs of their own, sold to the trade under their own name, and, following certain happenings of an undetermined nature, Stevens acquired the rights to Hall’s original designs and continued them as part of their own line.

1869 is the date of the first patent on the Hall’s Excelsior Bank, but the bank was not necessarily manufactured in that year. As a matter of fact, the patent drawings, which were no doubt filed toward the end of that year (the patent itself being issued December 21, 1869), show some variation from the physical construction of the actual production banks. Unless an early version of the Excelsior was made exactly according to the patent drawings (no example of which has ever turned up), it may be safely stated that the bank was not placed on the market prior to 1870 at the earliest. It is quite within the realm of possibility, in fact, that the Race Course Bank was actually manufactured prior to the Excelsior, although the latter was patented almost two years earlier. These two years may represent the period of time it took Mr. Hall to obtain the necessary backing to produce his banks. The 1871 catalog of Cutter, Hyde & Co. lists only the Race Course Bank, new that year. Depending on how one interprets this, it may indicate that the Excelsior Bank was then not yet on the market, or it may merely mean that Mr. Hall actually did manufacture his banks (that is, he let the contract himself) and farmed out the exclusive sales rights to different jobbers. Research on this point is continuing.

In view of these facts, the author is inclined to reserve any definite dating of the first iron mechanical bank in view of lack of direct evidence, but it may be said that sometime between 1869 and 1871 the first iron mechanical banks were manufactured at the Stevens factory. The banks in question were either Excelsiors or Race Courses, with the preponderance of available evidence inclining to indicate that the latter was the first, in 1871, but this point cannot be considered definite.

The common tradition that the Excelsior Bank is the older is based solely on the fact that it was known to have been patented first. Actually, of course, the tin frog bank, which was patented by Kellis Hoarde in 1868, must be taken into consideration in any final determination of the question of which was truly the first mechanical bank. At the moment, however, we are concerned primarily with the question of which was the first Stevens bank, that is, the first bank made at the Stevens plant, for, as noted, it is virtually certain that it was not then sold as a Stevens product. Whichever was the first bank made at Stevens, that same bank would also be the first mechanical bank in its most usual form-cast iron.

It is hardly possible that Hall foresaw all that he was starting when he created his first iron mechanical bank, yet from the few banks designed by him have stemmed the countless designs which satisfied America’s growing demands for upwards of seventy years. These first Hall banks sold well. So great was the demand for this new article of toy merchandise that Russel Frisbie, who had undoubtedly worked with Hall on the practical aspects of manufacturing his banks, saw unlimited possibilities in the field, and patented a bank of his own in 1872, which was assigned to the Stevens Company before the patent was issued.

This is the bank popularly known today as the Frog On Round Lattice Base, and which employed the same base bottom and sides as the Race Course Bank in its actual construction. Even before this, the interest in banks, stirred up primarily by Hall’s doings, had induced Stevens to undertake the manufacture of still banks to the patent and designs of Doras A Stiles of Middletown, Conn. It is not known if Stiles was a Stevens employee, as might be suggested by his address. At Bridgeport, Friend William Smith, of whom more anon, was busy on bank designs, and elsewhere others were stirring. In East Boston, Hugh Quinn, possibly an acquaintance of Hall’s, had patented a still bank, and the same year, 1872, saw Stiles patent the Home Bank, which was made by Stevens. Thus, by the end of 1872, Stevens had four mechanical banks available for production, and it is possible all four were in production by the close of that year, though which were then being made as Stevens products and which on contract is undetermined. 1873 saw Hall patenting the Tammany, and also brought the Novelty Bank designed by Charles C. Johnson of Somerville, Mass., a few miles from Watertown. It must be assumed that all of these men were more or less in contact with each other in Connecticut and Massachusetts, working together or competing in various degrees.

In 1873, Frisbie was granted a patent on a still bank improvement, and Henry Prouty of Boston patented the National Bank. This gave Stevens three very similar designs, the Home, the National, and the Novelty, all based on tellers at the doors of bank buildings. The fact that Stevens manufactured all three contemporaneously is not only indicative of the growing demand for mechanical banks, but lends weight to the theory that one or more of them was being made on contract. There is evidence that the sale of the Johnson bank was controlled, for a time at least, by the famous Boston firm of Horace Partridge, and, presumably, made on contract for them by Stevens. Stiles’ Home Bank was probably Stevens’ own.

As a matter of interest, the earliest models of the Novelty Bank were actually lettered “Johnson’s Novelty Bank”, and the Home Bank, which was made in several models and sizes in both mechanical and still versions was listed in jobbers’ catalogs of as late as 1876 or 1877 under the heading of “Styles’ (sic) Patent Banks”.

In 1875, Hall patented the Lilliput Bank and also a reclining dog bank which was never manufactured, but whose patent included the famous round Stevens coin trap, almost exactly in the form it was to be manufactured for over fifty years, except he specified an especially shaped slot for a special key, rather than the slot actually manufactured, which could be engaged by a screwdriver. The next year Frisbie filed an improved patent on the Tammany Bank, including the familiar sliding coin trap held in place by a screw, and used on most of the Tammany Banks as well as on several others including the Magic Bank. All of the earlier banks had had to be entirely taken apart, usually by removing a long screw that held the interlocking pieces of the casting together, before they could be emptied. As outlined in Chapter II, Hall patented other banks and features through the 1870’s, but they were all of a minor nature, mere adaptations of previous designs, or new ideas which never saw production.

This basic point seems clear: the Stevens Company went into the bank manufacturing business on their own sometime around 1872 or 1873, at the same time they were making banks for Hall, and possibly others. This put them in the position of actually competing with their own customer, and, as might be expected, the situation could not endure permanently. One tradition, of source unverifiable, has it that Hall and Stevens had an altercation sometime around 1873, but whatever falling out may have occurred, it probably took place no earlier than 1876. Probably both Hall and Stevens attempted to carry on for several years before they decided the situation could not be continued, for, whatever arrangements existed, including a possible agreement to pool patents, the situation was a delicate one.

The fact that the Frog On Round Lattice Base Bank, definitely sold as a Stevens product, and probably actually their first mechanical bank as such, employed the same base castings as Hall’s Race Course Bank is evidence either of the amicable arrangements which obtained for several years at least, or else lends support to the theory that Stevens took over the Hall banks not long after 1872. Tradition has it that Hall received a good price from Stevens for his patents and patterns, and Stevens continued to manufacture some of his banks for a number of years thereafter, continuing Hall’s name on the Excelsior, Lilliput, and some Tammanys.

There is a chance, of course, that Hall sold out to Stevens around 1873, and continued working for them as a designer, but the evidence now available points to a severance of relations about 1877, and a failure on the part of Hall to engage any further in bank design after that date. Stevens manufactured at least one other bank on contract. John D. Butler of Lancaster, Mass., patented the Panorama Bank in 1876, and assigned it to Elisha Selchow and John Righter of New York, who, as jobbers, were already one of the largest customers for Stevens banks, and welcomed this opportunity to offer the trade an exclusive design obtainable from no other jobbing house. They arranged to have Stevens manufacture the Panorama Bank for them on contract.

Stevens continually expanded their toy manufacturing activities in lines other than banks, and gradually the hardware lines fell into the background. It would seem they were dropped entirely by about 1890, although old timers at the factory still remember a large display case of hinges and similar articles in the office as late as 1903. Frisbie himself designed and patented a number of other types of toys as time went on, including miniature working steam engines, and in time the Stevens line of toys contained such varied articles as cast iron trains, pull toys, jack stones, miniature tools, stoves, dolls’ mirrors and furniture (a miniature cast iron chest of drawers they made is sometimes incorrectly regarded as a still bank), “Japanese Folding Wagons”, tops, kettles, skillets, coal hods and shovels, anchors, cannon, sad irons, and finally the cap pistols which eventually superseded the mechanical banks.

The stories of the Stevens banks has been told elsewhere, and a list of all the styles made at this factory from 1869 (or whatever the exact date of their inception may be) to 1928 would be needless repetition. Here we are concerned primarily with the history of the company itself, and with the men behind it. There are many names connected with the Stevens line of banks, but only a few contributed largely to the basic trend of Stevens bank designs, and hence to the industry itself. Hall was such a man, but by the late 1870’s he ha