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42 . IMPORTANT W . H . HARRISON 1840 LOG CABIN HARD CIDER BARREL STONEWARE BANK IN COLBALT BLUE . 4.25x5.75x6.75 ”. c . 1840 molded stoneware bank in the form of a log cabin with large hard cider barrel at top . Cobalt blue highlights throughout including highlighting all text . Roof panels read “ William Henry Harrison / President In 1841 / With Tip And Tyler / We ’ ll Burst Vans Boiler / Log Cabin ” and “ Harrison The Hero Of / Tippecanoe Fort Meigs And / The Thames Against Van / Buren The Demagogue / Of Kinderhook / Hurrah For Old Tip The / Farmer Of North Bend ”. Barrel has text on each side reading “ Hard Cider Boys ” and “ Log Cabin / Tippecanoe / Hard Cider ”. Some small losses of applied decorations including door and window edges . Additionally , a small loss at a bottom corner where logs meet . Otherwise only minor handling . Fine . Strong color and an impressive presence . An important campaign artifact that is sure to appeal to collectors in the fields of political Americana , American stoneware and banks . Rex & Patti Stark Collection .
A note from Americana Specialist Scott Mussell : Years ago , on a trip to Rex ’ s fabled third story china display room I asked him what his favorite piece was- he had a few he highlighted but ended with this bank . Beaming about the importance of stoneware and the incredible size , he then read aloud the inscriptions on the roof while tracing his finger along the detailed edge of the molded cabin flashing a rare grin . As impressed as I was by the piece then , examining it in detail now has left me even more so . Perhaps the earliest known political bank , this 1840 treasure checks all the boxes- clearly a campaign artifact , iconic log cabin and hard cider barrel motif , intriguing text , superlative quality construction with a large size that gives it tremendous display presence . It ’ s difficult to say definitively who molded the piece but a fair attribution would be Thomas Haig Jr . of Philadelphia who was known to produce log cabins , one of which we offered in our last sale . Given the prevalence of stoneware by the 1840s , it could have been produced by one of the skilled artisans in any of the major metropolises . What is for sure is that the artist was a skilled hand as this piece is sizable and of superlative quality . The artisan took the time to delineate each board of the roof and precisely space the impressed text ensuring no interruption in the message . They were careful to alternate the color of each log and detail the overlapping corners . The results are most impressive and the fact it has survived is incredible . Rex obtained this bank decades ago from Edmund B . Sullivan , Professor and Curator at the Hartford University Museum of American Political Life . The museum had an incident that caused damage to a collector ’ s loaned material that required an undisclosed but assuredly rather hefty payment . In exchange for covering these costs Rex obtained this bank . While I couldn ’ t find the full history of where Sullivan had sourced the bank , an Ohio APIC sage recalled another Ohioan , John Gibson , had an important Harrison bank that transferred to an East coast museum over 40 years ago . Suffice to say the bank has never been publicly available , making this a likely once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to obtain what , in our opinion , is the finest political campaign bank extant and one of the finest artifacts of the important 1840 Presidential campaign . ( N ) $ 5,000.00
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