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A piggy bank (sometimes a penny or money box) is the traditional name of a coin container commonly used by children. The piggy bank is known to collectors as “still a bank”, in contrast to the “mechanical banks” popular in the early 20th century. These items are also often used for promotional purposes by companies. The use of the name “piggy bank” has led to its well-known “pig” form, and many financial services companies use piggy banks as logos for their savings products.

Piggy banks are usually made of ceramic or porcelain. They are usually colored and serve as a pedagogical tool to teach children about frugality and saving; money is inserted easily. Many piggy banks have a rubber stopper on the underside; others are made of vinyl and have a removable spout for easy access to coins. Some of them include electronic systems that calculate the amount of money deposited. Some piggy banks do not have a hole other than a coin slot that can smash the piggy bank with a hammer or otherwise to get money from inside.

The oldest western find of the piggy bank dates back to the Greek colony of Priene, Asia Minor, in the 2nd century BC and is distinguished by the shape of a miniature Greek temple with a slot on the pediment. Piggy banks of various forms have also been excavated in Pompeii and Herculaneum and are pretty common in provincial monuments of late antiquity, especially in Roman Britain and the Rhine.

The earliest known pig-shaped money containers date back to the 12th century on the island of Java. The Javanese term cèlèngan (literally “likeness of a wild boar” but used to mean both “savings” and “piggy banks”) is also present in the modern Indonesian language. A large number of piggy banks in the shape of a boar have been found in a large archaeological site around Trowulan, a village in the Indonesian province of East Java and possibly the capital of the ancient Majapahit empire.

There are a number of folk etymologies regarding the English term “piggy bank”, but in fact, there is no clear origin of this word, which dates back only to the 40s of the last century. It is believed that the popularity of Western piggy banks originated in Germany, where pigs were revered as symbols of good luck. The oldest German piggy bank dated back to the 13th century and was rebuilt during construction work in Thuringia. The earliest known use of “pig bank” in English was the 1903 book An American Girl in Mexico, which described them as a Mexican souvenir. In Mexico, piggy banks are called alcancía, a term derived from Andalusian Arabic. Piggy banks are commonly used to store loose change in a quaint, decorative manner.

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