Banks for the memories (alternately: Oh Mickey, you're so fine)

One aspect of our stay in Los Angeles that gradually faded away over time was the various banks my parents got for me as souvenirs. I think only 12 banks in total were mentioned, with the last one being the one purchased in Chinatown in early December of 1967. I don't really know how many banks in total were obtained in Los Angeles or how many banks were added to my collection after we returned to Texas and the bank collection grew, but here are pictures of the ones I think were obtained in Los Angeles that were not mentioned in the letters. To avoid some repetition, all of these banks are, of course, pictured with the obligatory quarter for scale. First up is a bank bank, from California Federal Savings and Loan Association on Wilshire Blvd.

This is just a cardboard can with metal top and bottom. The partially obscured slogan on the front is: "The betterment of people is our billion-dollar business."

The other side of the bank has a caricature of an old prospector saying "Saving pennies makes dollars," and below that is the suggestion to "consult your telephone directory for our nearest office." ("Telephone directory" is another term for "phone book." Some of you may have to look that up.) Next is another bank bank, this time from Westdale Savings and Loan Association in Los Angeles. This one is all plastic and really is a piggy bank.

The next one is a ceramic bank made to look like the end of a loaf of bread, in both shape and color.

If there was any doubt as to what it is supposed to be, the word "BREAD" is painted on the top. I have no idea where this bank came from. Next is a ceramic bank with the words "LI'L DEVIL BANK" painted on the front. Again, I have no idea where this one came from. I was such a well-behaved child I really have no idea why that bank is even part of the collection.

Next is a very colorful ceramic Indian child. I don't know where this one came from, but Knott's Berry Farm would be a reasonable guess.

Next is a Jungle Book bank featuring Shere Khan and Mowgli.

The front of this one has a sticker indicating it came from Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, so I probably got this bank when Mom and I saw the movie there with Suzie Dirr in November of 1967, shortly after it was released. Next is a souvenir that is not a bank, but it's about the same size. It's a small beer stein. There is no indication of where it is from but my guess would be Busch Gardens.

Another non-bank souvenir is this little brown jug of Calico Corn, which is probably from Calico Ghost Town. I don't think there was any Calico corn in the jug when it was purchased.

Next up is one of the most interesting banks in the collection, mainly because it requires batteries and something really cool happens when you give it money.

As you can see, it's a haunted house. The sides are thin sheet metal and the rest of the house is plastic. (Notice the nice detail of overlapping shingles on the roof.) I don't know for certain if we got this one in Los Angeles, but if we did I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in any of the letters. Here's how it works. You can see in this picture that the front doors are partially open. Normally those doors are fully closed. You can also see two small circles on the front porch. Those circles are actually electrical contacts, and when you put a penny on the front porch, the penny completes a circuit which causes a ghost-like figure to come forward from within the house, pushing the front doors open. The base this figure is on moves over the penny and when it withdraws back into the house it takes the penny with it and the doors close. You can't see it in this picture, but there is also a light over the front doors that blinks while the ghost-like figure is outside. I haven't had batteries in it in several years, and it has suffered in the past from battery leakage, but I'll see if I can get it working before Halloween this year. Last but not least is the most special bank of them all. This one was mentioned in the letters and at the time I said it deserved its own blog post. But naturally I never got around to doing that so I'll include the story about this bank here. This is the Mickey Mouse bank I got at Disneyland on September 9, 1967. You may have noticed him in the background of some of the pictures taken around Christmas 1967, but here are pictures of the front and back of the bank all by itself. You may have to look closely to find the obligatory quarter for scale.

Yes, with a height of slightly under 19 inches, Mickey Mouse is the tallest bank in the collection. Mickey himself is about 16 inches tall and he's standing on a treasure chest about 3 inches tall.

The paint has gotten scratched up over the years, but other than a slightly pushed in nose it's in good shape.

In this picture of the bottom of the bank you can see that it was made by Transogram (maker of Tiddledy Winks) and cost $2.25 plus tax in 1967. You can also see where it says "Cut To Open," which we did. More on that in a bit. This bank is made from a thick, rigid plastic and it is completely hollow inside, which means it can hold a lot of coins. How many? Let's find out. At some point during our stay in Los Angeles or shortly after we returned to Texas, I started putting pennies in the Mickey Mouse bank. I assume these pennies just came from Mom and Dad's spare change. Since you had to cut open the bottom of the bank to get the money out, the money stayed in there. Fast forward a couple of years to when I was seven years old and in the second grade, and Mom and Dad were given a sales pitch for World Book encyclopedias. You may recall that I was quite the curious five-year-old when we were in L. A., so much so that Mom decided to purchase a geography book to help her answer the questions I came up with after I was given a globe. I assume my curiosity did not fade much over the next two years, and I know my grades in school were good, so Mom and Dad probably felt like a set of encyclopedias was a worthwhile investment that would allow me to look up the answers to all my questions my darn self. I don't know for sure what discussions took place, if any, but it was decided that the money in the Mickey Mouse bank would be used for the down payment on the set of World Book encyclopedias, and my savings rate went into high gear. I'm sure I was more than happy to donate those funds to get a set of encyclopedias since I didn't have much of a concept of money at the time anyway. I assume I knew what an encyclopedia was because my maternal grandmother in Denton had a set. [Fun fact: A few years later, my paternal grandmother started selling World Book encyclopedias.] At some point, many months after the original sales pitch for the encyclopedias, Mickey's bottom was cut open (ewwwww), and for the next several days or weeks, Mom and I spent a lot of time at the kitchen table counting pennies and rolling them into 50-cent paper rolls. I think the grand total when we got finished was around $27. Well, we got the encyclopedias, and the sales rep thought the story of how I saved up the money for the down payment would make a good story for the World Book company newsletter. So about a week after the encyclopedias were delivered, the sales rep came by the house with a photographer to take pictures for the story. And here is the clipping with that story from the World Book company newsletter.

The caption of that picture in the article is:

Third-grader David Jennings holds the Mickey Mouse bank which held most of the $30 in pennies he saved for a down payment on World Book. Representative Elisa Turner of the Dallas (Tex.) Branch made the demonstration to David's parents. Here's the text of the article: ===== He's banking on WB Our dime bank is a handy way to compare how little you pay to how much you get with World Book. Eight-year-old David Jennings' Mickey Mouse bank demonstrates how much you get when you want it hard enough. Mickey Mouse, you see, held most of the pennies that David had collected toward making a $30 down payment for World Book. The little boy from Dallas, Tex., had set his heart and his sights on the set when representative Elisa Turner first showed it to his family about a year ago. Writes Branch Vice-President and General Manager John Scott, "At that time, David was very excited about the books and started saving for the down payment. Delivery was made last week, and David was both proud and happy." Now the shelves in David's room have the 20 volumes of World Book as well as 40 of the banks he had collected and filled with pennies. "A penny saved is a penny earned," goes the saying. David would probably add that a penny invested in World Book is better than "money in the bank!" ===== On the shelves behind me you can see the set of World Books plus some of the banks I had at the time. Here is another picture taken from a slightly different angle that shows even more banks on the the shelves above the encyclopedias. You should definitely recognize some of those banks.

A few items to note in the standalone picture: It has a lot of pinholes because I had it pinned to a bulletin board in my room until I went to college. The two-volume World Book dictionary has switched sides from where it was in the picture used in the article. Apparently some rearranging occurred between takes. In the standalone picture that is not my hair behind my left ear, it's something on the wall behind me. That always bugged me because I didn't want people to think I was a long-haired hippie. Behind Ms. Turner's head, on the far left side of the picture, you can see the small black and white television set (with AM radio) I had in my room the whole time I was growing up. I don't recall ever watching TV on that set at night for some reason. (Maybe because we had a big color TV in the living room.) But I do remember frequently watching The Real McCoys or The Three Stooges before getting up to go to school in my younger years, on KTVT channel 11 when it was still an independent station. [Fun Fact: The "TVT" in KTVT stood for "TeleVision for Texans."] I also listened to a lot of Texas Ranger baseball games on that radio at night. Also behind Ms. Turner you can see part of the head and the rear end of the large bull bank that is no more. In both pictures you can see Ms. Turner is holding something. That is a very small bank. It's the dime bank referred to in the article, which is a plastic replica of one volume of a World Book encyclopedia. I still have that bank somewhere but unfortunately I can't find it at the moment. So the bank collection is more than just a collection of banks to me. It is a connection to not only the time we lived in Los Angeles but also to that set of World Book encyclopedias. And that set of encyclopedias certainly helped shape who I am today, since it was not only a tremendous help in completing assignments for school, it also allowed me to research almost anything as much as a wanted to. I would frequently read an article about something I was curious about, and then at the end of that article there would be a list of suggested articles related to that subject, which I would then investigate one by one, with those articles often leading to other articles, and so on. I would leave each book open on the floor to whatever I was reading last, such that it wasn't unusual to have ten or more volumes spread out all over the floor of my room. I'm sure many people who grew up with a set of encyclopedias in their home can relate to that. It could be compared to today's methods of doing research on the internet, with the "See also" in World Book articles being replaced by hyperlinks on web pages that take you to other pages, and the books spread out all over the floor being replaced by multiple browser tabs open. Eight-year-old me definitely would have been fascinated with the internet.

While writing all this I just realized that the Mickey Mouse bank is my Rosebud. Wow. Mind blown. Next up: Final thoughts