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Rare & Unusual Staffordshire Shakespeare Saving Bank

 

Stock No: 001010

 

Height: 4.75  Inches / 12 cm

 

Reference: Harding Victorian Staffordshire Figures 1875-1962, Page 17, Fig No 196.

 

A very unusual late Victorian Staffordshire moneybox titled ‘Shakespeare Saving Bank’. I have researched this rare Staffordshire money box and discovered a similar example c1862 located in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Museum  Stratford-Upon-Avon. The museum has the worlds largest collection of Shakespeare related artefacts. I have read that the house William Shakespeare is alleged to have been born in was fully restored by the Trust (shortly after it was formed) to its present state between 1857 and 1864. I would imagine that the little banks could have been saving vessels at the time to help with donations toward the restoration fund. The pottery money bank has no stopper so one would have to smash the house to retrieve the content, little wonder so few period examples have survived. I believe this to be a later Victorian example of an earlier contemporary bank, probably manufactured from the old moulds passed down at the William Kent factory from c1875 and is illustrated in a reproduction of the old Kent catalogue. It is in excellent condition with no repairs or restoration, it has a wonderful underglaze cobalt blue roof and has fine crazing to the glaze throughout.