GUEST: I brought in a cast iron mechanical bank.

I got it in western New York.

A friend of mine who's an antique dealer, he borrowed money from me... GUEST: ...and we were making a business investment into a friend of his.

And a few months later, his friend died, and so did the business.

He's kind of felt guilty a little bit about it, so once in a while, he'll give me a few items.

APPRAISER: So what can you tell me about the bank itself?

GUEST: Well, it's a shooting bank.

It'll shoot a penny from the rifle into the tree.

First, you cock the... holder back... You slip a penny on there, and see how the head went down?

Now you hit the toe.

(clinking) APPRAISER: What did you find when you looked it up?

GUEST: The J.E.

Stevens Creedmoor bank.

APPRAISER: Creedmoor bank.

Okay.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: How about the age of the bank?

Do you have any idea?

GUEST: Well, the original ones came out in 1877, as I am aware.

APPRAISER: Okay.

GUEST: But then they made reproductions after that.

APPRAISER: Sure.

The entire basis of the design of the mechanical bank, was to make saving money fun for children.

That way they wanted to save the money.

So, by introducing a movement, it created a toy, an action.

Your research was spot on.

The Creedmoor bank was made by a Connecticut company, J.

& E. Stevens, and we see it quite often.

It's a fairly common bank, a very popular bank.

1877, 1880, that's the time frame we see that bank and associate with that bank.

However, there are slight differences between this bank and the Creedmoor bank we normally see.

They did make a few variations of this style shooting bank, with the figure wearing a different hat.

And then right here on the front is a base plate.

That's often where we'll see Creedmoor Bank, the New Creedmoor Bank, Volunteer is another name.

I'm happy that yours is blank.

And even though your paint is very thick, a bit drab in color, I believe the paint to be completely original.

GUEST: Oh, nice.

APPRAISER: The casting is also a little crude.

A little more crude than I'd expect from the American cast iron manufacturers.

This one, instead, is a cast iron mechanical bank, but made in Europe, either in Germany or in Austria.

This bank was a few years later, circa 1890.

This is actually much, much rarer than a Creedmoor bank by J.

& E. Stevens.

GUEST: Oh, wow.

APPRAISER: Yes, much better.

Much better example here.

I'll turn it around, so we can see the back side of the bank as well.

Another characteristic which is different is the color of his uniform itself.

It's almost in a reverse painted colors.

We have a red robe, and he has white pants.

Uh, normally we'll see a gray, red and blue, but in a different configuration than that which he's wearing.

Now, this bank is quite dirty.

APPRAISER: I do believe it will clean up very nicely with a little... time and energy.

Uh, but you have to be careful when you're doing it, you don't want to disrupt the original paint.

Now, a normal J.

& E. Stevens Creedmoor--there are thousands of them out there.

Of course, condition is king, but you can pick up a Creedmoor bank around $300 to $500 range.

When it comes to the variations, they're much scarcer and hard to come by.

The paint on this example is quite chipped and worn.

However, it's authentic, and I would value this with an auction estimate of $1,000 to $1,500.

GUEST: Well, that's good news.

That's awesome.

APPRAISER: Yeah, it's cool.