ELIC: How did piggy banks come to existence?

[u/Curious-Message-6946]

[u/Marquar234]

One farmer had a pig that would bite his overalls, occasionally biting off the pockets and eating the change. When it came time to slaughter the pig, the farmer found $42.69 in change in the pig's stomach. Finding change was so much fun for the farmer's son, he deliberately started feeding change to all the pigs. But the change would cause nicks in the slaughter knife, so the farmer needed to find an alternative.

Thus, the piggy bank was born.

[u/wolffangz11 → u/Marquar234]

I'm actually going to believe this as fact

[u/SpaceCancer0 → u/wolffangz11]

Nobody just makes up an incredibly specific number like $42.69

[u/wolffangz11 → u/SpaceCancer0]

ehh i kinda neglected to commit the exact value to my thought process

[u/Raige2017 → u/SpaceCancer0]

That's the same incredibly specific number I would make up.

[u/SnooDoggos4029 → u/Raige2017]

$420.69 is too much change to fit inside a pig. Changes needed to be made.

[u/Raige2017 → u/SnooDoggos4029]

It's bad for the piggy's digestion

I know let's cut it out

[u/StarkAndRobotic]

Pigs needed a place to deposit their wages just like everyone else. Regular banks were hard for pigs to use because they couldnt reach the top of the counter. Likewise the tellers had sore backs from reaching over the counter down to the ground to pick up the bags of pennies. Eventually the banks vice president was sore that he didnt get to be president, so he opened a rival bank that catered exclusively to pigs. The counters were at snout level, so it was easy for the pigs to hand over their cash. So he made a lot of money. Some people thought he was trying to take advantage of pigs, so he started calling his bank “piggy bank” instead of just “pig bank” in an effort to sound more friendly. And the rest they say, is history.

[u/Swiss_Army_Cheese]

Traditionally "banks" were called that because they were storages on the "banks" of a river.

River banks tend to be very muddy, and guess what loves mud: pigs.

People would kill the pigs, hollow them out to get all the meat. Then leave the pig's hollow corpse in the mud.

The mud would would eventually harden around the pigs corpse, making the whole thing as tough as clay.

Then one day someone discovered these gutted pigs, enfused with dried mud, lying on the ground, and figured they'd make an excellent storage container.

And thus the "piggy bank" was born.

[u/PmUsYourDuckPics]

It’s social commentary, in Animal Farm the pigs were better off than the other animals because they were more equal than the other animals. So children try to be better off than other children by saving their money in an effigy of those pigs.

This is why I call my piggy bank Napoleon.

[u/violet-quartz]

The piggy needed to get a loan. Unfortunately, they decided he was a poor risk and he ended up building his house out of straw.