An interesting little plastic coin bank from the Cleveland Trust Company

WillieBoyd2

This little 4" x 3" plastic coin saving bank is from the Cleveland Trust Company of Cleveland, Ohio.

A friend from a hiking club showed it to me. It was full of old silver coins and she wanted me to open it and get the coins out. I did.

The front reads:
A Great City ... A Great Bank!
The Cleveland Trust Company
63 Convenient Offices ... Banking Services
The Bank For All the People
(Drawing) Gen Moses Cleaveland (spelled the old way)

Under the bottom reads:
Tom Thrift Enterprises
New Canaan, Conn
Patents Applied For

The Tom Thrift company made these coin banks in the 1950's to encourage people to save money.

The coin bank has seven tubes for circulating coins of 1, 5 (two), 10 (two), 25, and 50 cents.

The sponsoring bank would hand the coin banks out to customers to fill with coins. The customer would bring the coin bank to the office where a teller would use a special key to unlock it and deposit the coins to an account.

I found a couple of similar Tom Thrift coin banks on Ebay selling for $15.00 to $30.00 and a couple of newspaper advertisements dated 1954 and 1956 from banks offering these coin banks to customers.

Timbuk3

Nice !!!

Smudge

Had to take it to the bank to open it. Banks will never CHANGE.

ricko

Banks used these items and also special passbooks for kids (often passed out at school with a session on saving) to promote thrift - and their business, years ago. Cheers, RickO

Hallco

This is the 2018 version. Our company gave these out to the membership at this year's annual meeting:

WillieBoyd2

In response to a question about the silver coins removed:

CaptHenway

Nice!

divecchia

Neat piece and with some nice silver inside.

Donato

Meltdown

Very cool. I think I would have left the coins inside. Here's a little something related I picked up last year at an antique show.
All silver dimes...

johnny9434

its nice to see the contents of the bank and the silver in the coin folder

COINS MAKE CENTS

I love those old coin folders I wish I could find a bunch of them. empty ones with no coins to fill up over time

CoinCrazyPA

Nice, thanks for sharing.

BLUEJAYWAY

@Meltdown said:
Very cool. I think I would have left the coins inside. Here's a little something related I picked up last year at an antique show.
All silver dimes...

I wonder, if given enough time, would any of those dimes tone in those type of holders?

Cameonut

I'm starting to feel old.
I recall filling dime folders like the one above with silver dimes when I was a kid. Then off to the savings and loan to deposit them and start over.

COINS MAKE CENTS

@BLUEJAYWAY said:

@Meltdown said:
Very cool. I think I would have left the coins inside. Here's a little something related I picked up last year at an antique show.
All silver dimes...

I wonder, if given enough time, would any of those dimes tone in those type of holders?

I have seen 2 different types of toning. Certain books will give the coins some color. Other books normally the quarter ones will just turn the coins almost a black color I guess it's different kinds if paper

ECHOES

Thanks for posting, found a bank on ebay.
I plan to fill with 'junk silver', very cool...

1630Boston

@ECHOES said:
Thanks for posting, found a bank on ebay.
I plan to fill with 'junk silver', very cool...

Is there such a thing as 'junk silver' ??

ECHOES

@1630Boston said:

@ECHOES said:
Thanks for posting, found a bank on ebay.
I plan to fill with 'junk silver', very cool...

Is there such a thing as 'junk silver' ??

No, much apologies, will fill with 50's/60's vintage silver coins...
(EDIT to Add) Wheat Lincoln's as well...

1630Boston

@ECHOES
I was just making a joke about the silver

ECHOES

There is a connection, for me if you will.
I also collect Post War Lionel Trains. Hagerstown was their last location (Lionel Corp.) before the rights were sold in 1970.

johnny9434

@Cameonut said:
I'm starting to feel old.
I recall filling dime folders like the one above with silver dimes when I was a kid. Then off to the savings and loan to deposit them and start over.

my grand mother made me me do that when i was a young kid. good way to teach some one i guess

thefinn

@BLUEJAYWAY said:

@Meltdown said:
Very cool. I think I would have left the coins inside. Here's a little something related I picked up last year at an antique show.
All silver dimes...

I wonder, if given enough time, would any of those dimes tone in those type of holders?

Yes, but mostly the exposed side where the air could come in contact with the coin.

ECHOES

With the help of @WillieBoyd2, I was able to open the Bank.
The 'lock' is a very simple mechanism consisting of 2 pieces of spring steel wire.
These two pieces lock under the screw head protruding from the bottom of the Lucite Bank.
To unlock, the two spring steel wires need to be spread apart at the same time.
Today I decided to take an excursion to the local flea market to search for small flat keys in the hope of being able to fashion one for the bank.
I found two keys, and was able to modify the smaller of the two, best part, I was able to make the key on the first try.
Picked up the Franklin at melt, off to a good start...

WillieBoyd2

Congratulations on opening the box!

I expected the key to look something like the one in the picture.

ECHOES

@WillieBoyd2 said:
Congratulations on opening the box!

I expected the key to look something like the one in the picture.

Thanks,
The key (in Pic) looks much different now.
I used a dremel tool to cut out the center portion, leaving the 'T' shape.
It works perfectly to open the lock.