The story of the piggy bank is a lot stranger than most people realize. 🐷💰 It was not originally invented to look like a pig — the pig shape came later.
The earliest “piggy banks” were simply containers for saving coins. Hundreds of years ago, people needed a place to store small amounts of money, and they used small clay jars or pots. In medieval Europe, especially around the 13th–15th centuries, households often used an orange-coloured clay called pygg (pronounced like “pig”) to make kitchen items such as jars and dishes.
These containers became known as pygg jars.
When people put extra coins into a pygg jar, the phrase “pygg bank” began to mean a container for saving money. But there was no pig involved at all.
The famous pig shape likely appeared much later. Around the 18th and 19th centuries, pottery makers began creating coin banks shaped like animals. Since the old term “pygg bank” sounded exactly like “pig bank,” craftsmen started making banks in the shape of an actual pig. It was a clever pun that turned into a tradition.
The pig also made sense symbolically:
- Pigs were associated with wealth and prosperity in some cultures.
- Farmers valued pigs because they grew quickly and could be turned into a source of food and income.
- A pig represented something that could “grow” over time — just like savings.
Early piggy banks were often made from clay or ceramic and had a slot for coins. Many were designed to be broken open, meaning you had to smash the bank to get your savings out — which encouraged patience.
Later, manufacturers created reusable versions with a rubber stopper or removable plug. The piggy bank became especially popular as a way to teach children about saving money.
Today, piggy banks come in every form imaginable — plastic, metal, electronic, even apps that use a digital “piggy bank” idea.
So the funny truth is:
The piggy bank was not born from a pig.
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