Grand Opening of Central Bank on Colorado Ave. – Feb. 13, 1958

Here’s a nice full-page ad announcing the Grand Opening of the Colorado Avenue branch of the Central Bank Company. It’s a reminder that the unsightly building at that location today once had a thriving and important business within its walls.

I’ve featured the building at 1443 Colorado Avenue on the blog before, including this post that revealed the original tenant, and included the story of a 1967 bank robbery.

That’s a nice line art illustration of the building in the ad, which ran in the Lorain Journal on Feb. 13, 1958.

Anyway, of most interest in the ad is the “all new coin-bank that works like a wall-safe.” The gimmick is that it was a coin bank hidden behind “a beautiful picture frame and print.” The sample had a picture of a vintage locomotive.

Alas, I tried unsuccessfully to find an actual photo of one of these things online. I had hoped that somehow one of them had survived for 60 years.

Perhaps a Lorain reader has one still hanging on the wall of their 1950s ranch, unaware of the potential fortune in coins that remains hidden from view.