Surfing for Konga I was gobsmacked by this cool blog's movie pressbook post from 2015.
A veritable simian treasure trove!
Generously, Zombo's Closet posted the entire thing, so enjoy it!
One thing that caught my eye on the page marked Special Exploitation Material was the Konga bank. A statue more or less!
Zooming in on the bank we can see that it was 8 inches high and as the release of the film was 1961 then this bank was available in 1961 too.
There is no mention of the material used or where the coin slot was.
Fascinated by this cash-lovin' Konga I tried to find one online. Nada! Nichts! Nowt!
What I did find was a King Kong bank. In fact hordes of them!
Here's a Kong bank that looks awfully similar to our other simian friend.
The base is labelled.
It reads "Copyright S & O Mdse. Co. 1953. The old auction described it as 'hand painted molded ceramic', 'Meant to be broken to retrieve coins' and 'size 5.5" wide, 3" deep and 7.5" tall'.
I don't know what the S & O Mdse. Co means but at 7.5 inches tall I would say we have a match! Kong is Konga!
Some bright spark simply added a Konga name onto deadstock of these pre-existing King Kong banks from 1953 and flogged them in 1961 when Konga came out.
I can't find a Konga bank because the names have simply dropped off the Kongs!
What do ya reckon fellow ape men?
You've convinced me!
ReplyDeleteHa ha! Can't be many Kong money band around now!
DeleteNo Wonga for you!
ReplyDeleteGimme yer wonga Baron says Konga!
DeleteA great article. Mdse is an abbreviation for Merchandise, if that is any help.
ReplyDeleteTa Paul and thanks for the update too.
Delete