Shooting Banks

One of the largest categories of mechanical bank is that of the shooting bank, the first of which was the Creedmoor bank created by James Bowen for the J&E Stevens company. This bank represents a soldier practicing his marksmanship; shooting at a tree on a battlefield in Queens, New York likely during the Revolutionary War. This bank has been reproduced many times and is still being made as reproductions today and continues to be very popular. It also served to spawn this whole category. Multiple variations were created in different countries with different shooters and different identification plates. Beyond that there would be alterations of the figures and themes. Banks such as the Indian and the Bear, the William Tell Bank, and the Teddy and the Bear bank represent just a few. In all these banks a figure is holding a rifle (though in the Australian William Tell, it’s a bow and arrow). The rifle contains a spring-loaded mechanism and when a penny is placed on it and the action is initiated, the coin is fired into a tree, a building, or some other receptacle. In the modern, Southern Comfort bank, which was a promotional item for the famous bourbon, the confederate soldier fires into a liquor bottle. In the end, this category is one of the most diverse and continues to be among the most popular today.