A New Harper Find!
Published in the August 2024 Penny Bank Post | Written by Mike Henry
In the early 1980’s I spent an afternoon at the Copyright Office in Washington, D.C. My purpose that day was to research copyrights issued to James M. Harper for banks produced by the Harper Supply Co. Among those issued to Harper were seven copyrights for banks registered in 1905. Of these seven, only three have come to light as verified Harper banks. These are the Bull and Bear (known now as the Board of Trade), The Indian Family, and the Liberty Bell. Until recently, none of the other four (Buster Brown, Old Abe, Cat and Kittens, and Togo) have been found or conclusively identified as Harper banks.
I was fortunate enough to obtain an example of the “Admiral Togo” bank earlier this year, when it appeared in an auction in the Midwest. Luckily for me, the bank (Fig. 1), was not well advertised or well pictured. Admiral Togo Heihachiro (b. 1848 - d. 1934) (Fig. 2) was born into a samurai family and followed a path into the military. As a Japanese Naval Ca-det, Togo was assigned to travel for training to Great Britain, where he eventually graduated second in his class. Re-turning to Japan as a lieutenant, he rose through the ranks and was given command of his first ship in 1883. In 1903 he was promoted to Commander-in-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy Fleet and became recognized as national hero of the Russo-Japanese War when he led his Fleet to a decisive victory over the Russian Fleet at the Battle of Tsushima on May 27th, 1905.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Interestingly, Harper applied for a copyright for his “Togo” bank two weeks after this victory. Togo’s win must have made a big splash in the American newspapers for Harper to consider using him and his battleship the “Mikasa” as the subjects of a bank…
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