My Niece Michele and her husband Tom are very much into antiques.
They had this antique, cast iron bank when I first moved up here.
They obviously still have it.
You put a coin in the clowns mouth, press a switch and the hand
Moves to toss the coin into the clowns mouth,
Making a deposit in the bank.
There is a hole in the bottom for withdrawals.
Despite getting everything you put in out,
There was always a rattle.
So at Thanksgiving last week, her grand kids were playing with it
(unbeknownst to their elders) and they got it jammed.
Their Mom got it apart and fixed (I think) but in the process,
discovered what had made the rattling all this time;
There were more than a dozen LARGE PENNIES, from the late 1800's,
that were TOO large to come out of the withdrawal hole.
I think she said the oldest was dated 1887.
So those coins had been inside this artifact for 131 YEARS.
I suspect that all those years of being shaken and moved around,
Sliding against each other on the flat surfaces of the coins,
Is what resulted in the wear you can see on the raised images
On the coins.
"Unexpected Bonanza"
by
Jerry E Smith
©11/28/2018
All photos are original, taken with my LG Stylo 4 cellphone
