TOPIC:

Picture courtesy of Lawrences Auctioneers

A cast iron money box in the form of a caricatured President Kruger with hat and pipe, the hat inscribed 'Transvaal Money Box', cast to the reverse 'By Permission of the proprietors of the Westminster Gazelie'. 15.5cm high.

Estimate £100-£150.

I recently acquired this Transvaal Money Box; I must admit he his kinda cute; at least the family thinks so

The originals were made by John Harper & Co. Ltd who at the time had factories in Birmingham & at Willenhall, Staffordshire (in the Black Country)

The Willenhall premises was still going in the 1970's and they made castings for Rolls Royce amongst others. This my favourite advert published in 1962 and found on Graces Guide:



Why my favourite because my Mother had an earlier model which came into action every Monday to convert the remains of the Sunday roast into cottage pie. Once again I digress and this link takes this post back on target (very much so):

daynesdiscoveries.com/2017/10/21/history...transvaal-money-box/

Btw I don't think they were very good likenesses.

Genuine Harper examples are extremely rare and highly sort after.

This coloured example sold for an eye-watering $30,000 USD (excluding costs). As I understand it, wealthy bankers collect these still and mechanical banks, which perhaps explains the crazy prices.



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Apart from the "Gazelie" examples, there are a large number of recasts of the Harper "Gazette" banks out there. These, given the high value of the originals, are unsurprisingly often sold as period money-boxes.

Some of these are very convincing, but on close examination lack the crispness of the originals. The one below, bought as an original, is one of these copies. Note the lack of detail in Kruger's beard.






This one, on the other hand, I am fairly confident is "right". The broken foot and replacement pipe made it affordable.




ANOTHER LINK: Mechanical Bank Collectors of America

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Hi Neville,

Thanks for the additional information; whenever I see these for sale I have a quick look at the writing on the back to see who made it.

Now I know what to look out for if I see a Harper version out there.

Mine only cost $100 all up so it's definitely not an original; not bad for something that's over 100 years old.

My family did drop some coins to see if the pipe "jiggled", no luck, but now it's stuck in there....I guess that's the purpose of it afterall