In the second quarter of the 19th century, a few glasshouses in and around Boston, including the Phoenix Glass Works, Boston and Sandwich Glass Company, and New England Glass Company, are known to have made whimsical glassware. Skilled glassblowers sometimes enclosed a coin in the hollow knop of the stem or foot of pitchers, vases, goblets, and even banks. They were unique creations and not part of the standard production.

This practice was not new. A Venetian example dated 1647 is known, and from the second quarter of the 17th century there are several English and later Irish pieces. The earliest American example recorded is that presumably made for Albert Gallatin at his New Geneva Glass Works in southwestern Pennsylvania about 1800, which encloses a medal that he received from the Collège de Genève (now Collège Calvin), Switzerland, where he studied.

Almost certainly made in the Boston area, this free-blown cream jug encloses a nearly uncirculated 1831 United States half dime, which was produced at the United States Mint in Philadelphia, the only American mint until 1838. Likely intended as a novel gift, this cream jug may have been made the year of the minted coin or shortly thereafter, perhaps to commemorate a significant event such as a marriage or baptism.