Antique Carved Wood Shoe Shaped Still Bank vintage brushes with 1890 handwritten in pen

with 1890 handwritten in pen on reverse

If not to be used as a palette

and decidedly modern

The adjacent side of the box is painted with stenciled black letters: "Keystone Mills 10 Lbs

Quite heavy for its size

Antique Carved Wood Shoe Shaped Still Bank vintage brushes with 1890 handwritten in penI've searched but haven't found another little shoe like this one perhaps because, if it is indeed an antique coin bank as I think it is, most of them were smashed long ago to retrieve the coins inside! It seems possible that untying the lace would allow it to come apart some to empty it, but the ribbon is so old and brittle I am afraid to try it! Clearly it was made in two halves, so it would seem they might split apart, but the two sides now seem