Odd silver plated BANK? with geese(???)...

Well, we've just seen Smudged's fantastic silver plated item in the Metalware category.

MY silver plated item is so far from fantastic that it's embarrassing, but I've had it for years and wonder if anyone has any ideas about it... It's weird, if nothing else!

Standing about 4" tall, it appears to be a coin bank, altho:
1) nothing bigger than a dime would fit thru the slot;
2) the slot does not appear to have been "professionally" cut.

Also, there are odd holes punched in the bottom, and I haven't come up with a way to remove the lid.

Note that there are gobs of solder(?) silver(?) other metal(?) around the edges of the bottom. Anything you may see as a maker's mark is likely one of those "gobs". I have been over the piece with a loupe several times and have found nothing that is actually a mark/a word/a number - nada!

Here it is:

 

You sure that's a goose? Looks more like an eagle's beak to me. I think a goose's neck would be longer too.

 

Turkey Vulture?

nah, just a turkey.

 

Welllll... At first, I thought it was an eagle, but then I decided it wasn't. (Why would there be a GOOSE on a bank, anyway???!!!)

In truth, I really don't know WHAT it is - other than WEIRD!

 

Is that what it used to be called?

 

It is odd, but does look like a bank. If you blow into the slot in the top, does the air flow through to the holes in the bottom, or are they separate compartments? For what it's worth, my initial impression was a grouse of some kind...

~Cheryl

 

You can actually SEE thru the coin slot and out the little holes on the bottom - so not separate compartments at all.

A grouse, eh? Sure, why not! A coin bank with grouse on it is no stranger than one with geese or turkeys!

 

I figured out what it is! It's a pie bird made for four-and-twenty blackbirds!

 

Hunhhh, thought maybe someone got carried away with vent holes when they soldered the bottom, but if it's open to the top slot, then it wouldn't have been necessary.

And I may have been influenced by an old Norwegian silver pattern called 'Tiur' (caipercaillie/wood grouse)...





~Cheryl