"While the exact origin is a little uncertain, historians speculate that the concept of a piggy bank started in England during the Middle Ages, probably in the mid-1500s.
At this point in history, metal was still seldom used and very expensive. So expensive, in fact, that common people did not own any metal cooking pots or utensils. Instead, dishes, jars and cookware were made from an affordable and easily available orange clay that was called "pygg."
Families often kept any spare household coins in one of their clay pygg jars, and these containers became commonly known in England as a pygg jar and later a pygg bank.
Several centuries later -- probably around the eighteenth century -- the name had evolved into piggy bank. Around this same time, a handful of potters began making clay banks in the shape and likeness of the animal namesake, which is how the first piggy banks were born."
Out of the money banks that we have in the store I'd have to say that the Uncle Sam Bank is my favorite just for the vintage cash register look. Every time you put in a coin you pull a lever and it ads to the tally display!
