Piggy Banks

A piggy bank is probably something we've all had as a child and through our younger lives. For those who have forgotten about or don't know what a piggy bank is, it is a small almost completely sealed ceramic or porcelain container that looks like the animal called a "Pig" and at the top, there is a slit cut just wide and thick enough to slip money through into the container.

Many often wonder, "Who invented the piggy bank?" Well, really nobody actually did invent it. The piggy banks' origin owes more to the history of language than to an individual inventor. In old English (around the 15th century) there was a word known as "pygg" which referred to a type of orange clay. People made all sorts of useful objects out of this clay including dishes and jars to hold spare change. Around the 18th century, the word "pygg" now sounded the same as the word for the animal "pig". An unknown person(s) thought to shape a "pygg" jar, to look just like a real pig. Perhaps an order came in for a "pygg" jar and the potter misunderstood?

Either way, the piggy bank has become extremely well known of all over the world. Many have one, some want one and nowadays, piggy banks are not only in the form of pigs themselves anymore, but today can have many different shapes, sizes and colors. Piggy banks are not only made of ceramic and porcelain as they use to be centuries ago, but are now made from many things ranging from plastics to metals or different kinds of glass. They have in ways also come to serve as an ornamental use.

A piggy bank also by some peoples' standards may be considered to be a child's thing only and not for adults. This is probably as untrue as saying people can't live without food. Many adults use piggy banks believe it or not to save money for a rainy days or have a little spare change kicking around just in case they may need it sometime.

So really how much is a piggy bank? Well, to be honest it can be surprisingly overlooked as to how much these things can cost. Typically they're not very expensive at all however, though they can be cheap to purchase, some range in the hundreds or thousands of dollars for collectors and such.