Soapy's safe

Soapy puts his days profits into his safe

(click image to enlarge)

Considering that Skagway was an 1898 gold rush camp in the Alaskan wilderness, and that the nearest large city was also exactly 100-miles away, and that the amount of gold and currency Soapy Smith won on a weekly basis, it is logical to believe that he would have had to have hid some of his ill-gotten loot. There were only so many banks and safes in the camp so where he hid his treasure is a bit of a mystery. There is no record of him owning a safe so this is just a fun fictional part of my imagination.
 

Toy coin bank
before customizing

In collecting smalls for my Soapy action figure collection I often ran into 1/6 scale money, gold nuggets, gold bars, and money related items. For a while I used a baseball display case for the gold (see 02/17/2015) but I thought that a neat item to display some of it would be a safe.

My search began in the toy coin safe field. In searching I learned about collecting antique coin safes dating from the 1880s to the 1960s. These are mostly made of heavy metals, many being nickle-plated. The prices realized for these prized banks were hefty, especially considering that I only wanted it as a prop. Besides the asking prices, the knobs and dials were larger than a 1/6 scale figure would be using.

Inside custom work

Inside custom work

After a few week of searching I came across a Thrift Dial Bank, made of tin with wooden wheels. It was the only one I had come across in which the size of the dials and handle matched my 1/6 scale figures. It was also one of the cheapest in price as well so I snatched it up. It's a toy, but I thought it comical that the lock actually works! The combination to the safe being "7."

Upon receiving it I figured out what I would need to customized the inside flooring, walls and shelf, and off to Hobby Lobby I went. I used their 1/12 wood wainscoting for the floor and walls, and then found some thin green felt for the shelf. I am very happy with the way it turned out.

The props placed on show inside the safe are a wooden box of gold coins, currency, several stocks and legal papers, a large gold nugget and five canvas gold pokes filled with smaller gold nuggets and "dust."

The finished prop