I was planning on trying to sell it, but it turns out that there are dozens available on eBay, and the bank I had might fetch a whopping $6. So...not a great find.
When I went to get the bank, I noticed that there was something inside it (I didn't notice it when I first got the bank, since it was in a box with a lot of other stuff). So, I broke out my trusty cast head bank key (more commonly known as a screwdriver), pried the bottom open, and emptied the bank out.
Sorry, no gold coins, folded up IBM stock certificates, or bags of diamonds.
But I did find a cool old coin.
I have never seen a half-cent piece before. I didn't even know they made such coins!
For a coin with such low monetary value, it's sure big...bigger than a quarter, and a lot heavier, too.
Value-wise, it might be worth $10-$20. But its coolness factor (at least to me) is off the chart.
This coin was around:
- for 2 World Wars
- the birth of just about everyone I know
- the Civil War
- almost the entire Victorian Era
- way too many US Presidents
- before the birth of the auto
- before...well...just about all I know.
I thought about selling it for maybe 10 seconds. But I can't let it go. I'm far from a numismatist, and I don't think this coin will get me started on that long road of coin collecting, but I just think it's rather...well...too cool to get rid of.
There are a great many fake cast iron banks out there and that may be the reason the price for your bank is so low on Ebay. I'd search out a site that specializes in old banks to see if yours is a valuable old one that has been copied, the Ebay price might not be representative of a real old bank. Some fake bank makers (not many) are often good at giving them an old look and their could be ones like yours might have been made as a fake anytime in the past 60 years or so. And that penny seems to clearly date that bank as being an authentic one and not a fake.
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