Bidspirit auction | JNF Collection Box for Children

JNF Collection Box for Children – Australia, 1950s - JNF collection box for children, issued for the Junior Blue Box Club, the youth club of the Jewish National Fund. Manufactured by Containers Ltd., [probably Australia, ca. 1950s]. Printed tinplate. Jewish National Fund donation box. The front bears the inscription: ”The Holder of This Box Is a Member of the Junior Blue Box Club”. The sides are decorated with illustrations of Jewish pioneers carrying an Israeli flag and planting trees; in the background are a watchtower, alluding to the Tower and Stockade settlements and the struggle for the land, and a water tower, likewise evoking the settlement enterprise in Palestine. Encircling the lower part of the box is the slogan: ”We Turn Coins into Jewish Land and Jewish Life”. The underside of the box has a locked hatch for emptying the coins (key missing). The album ”The Blue Box” (Jerusalem, 2014) identifies the Junior Blue Box Club as an American organization; however, the available evidence suggests that it was in fact Australian. Established under the auspices of the Jewish National Fund, the club is frequently mentioned in various Australian Jewish newspapers from the late 1940s through the early 1970s. Reference: Shaul Ladany and Dotan Shulman, The Blue Box, Jerusalem: JNF, 2014, p. 181. Height: 10.5 cm; width: 8.5 cm; depth: 6 cm.