This is a very fine example of a rare form of American glass. There are six 19th-century banks in the Museum’s collection. Each one is different, an individual creation of the glassblower and not standard production. While such banks may have been intended for use, it would have been necessary to break them in order to remove the coins. Thus it is more likely that they were gifts and solely for display. A small number of glass banks with coins in their stems have been published. Most of them are associated with New England, and this is why they are attributed to the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company or the New England Glass Company. This example, with a coin dated 1839, was probably made that year or shortly thereafter, perhaps to commemorate a significant event. Its applied green decoration and the coin are rare. The object was probably made in the same glasshouse that produced another bank in the Corning collection that has an 1840 half dime in its stem, a chicken on its top, and similar rigaree decoration, which consists of four vertical applied and crimped bands.