Bank, Mechanical, Duro, Mercury

This rocket-themed bank is the Duro Mercury mechanical bank. The Detroit-based company Duro Pattern & Mold Co. began producing the Mercury model rocket bank in the early 1950s. Although labeled on its packaging only as a "Rocket Bank," this model was known as the Mercury model. Shaped like a comic-book-style rocket ship, with curved sides and a pointed end, the Duro Mercury bank had a mechanism that allowed the owner to shoot coins (pennies, nickels, or dimes) into a slot in the "nose cone" of the bank. Such banks were made to be distributed by individual bank branches as a part of promotions, as evidenced by the label on its side from the First National Bank of Denver, Colorado.

Raymond Reines donated this bank to the Museum in 2011.