MAY FRIEND, Very Tender and Evocative 1898 Folk Art Still Bank with Cracked Glass Front wooden barrel shaped box but it's a rare occasion

but it's a rare occasion I come across one with a frame as beautifully primitive as this one

Signed on both sides

and Justice of the Peace

and the silver-plate is in good shape too

introduced in 1899

MAY FRIEND, Very Tender and Evocative 1898 Folk Art Still Bank with Cracked Glass Front wooden barrel shaped box but it's a rare occasionI love this thing. When I first saw it (at an antiques show in Maine), I read "May Friend" as a sort of descriptor rather than as a girl's name, and, because it struck me as looking very much like a cage stage, with the glass providing a view into the interior, and this excellent lettering closely framing the glass like titles, I imagined a cricket or a butterfly or a lightening bug as the "May Friend" this object might welcome and house. (And with no