Origin
Facts
Where ever earthenware or porcelain industry is, or has been, one can find piggy banks. In the Netherlands there are well known places like Gouda, Delft, Makkum. In France Quimper (Brittany), Limoges, Lunéville. In the UK one has to search in Staffordshire. Or take a chance on antique markets, boot fairs, etc. In Germany one can try to find piggy banks in the Alsace or the former GDR. In Czechoslovakia I found many piggy banks about 20 years ago, nowadays they all are with stoppers! If you are visiting Thailand you can buy piggy banks in Chiang Mai for example. There are opportunities to find them in Mexico, Vietnam, Africa, South America and lots of them in the USA, etc.
Where ever you are, visit the local souvenir shop, crockery shop, toy shop, charity shop. Don’t search for piggy banks in countries where it is not custom to eat pork. Where a pig is an unclean animal, in principle you will not find any pig piggy bank.
It is not easy to identify the origin of a piggy bank, 90% of them have no hallmark. Often it seems clear from which country they are, but the factory or potter that made them remains unknown. The possibility that a piggy bank is from Czechoslovakian origin is great, 25% of the piggy banks made before the Great War (1914-1918) were produced there. If the nice antique or vintage piggy bank you bought in the UK or USA has a stamp Foreign then this bank is made elsewhere (China, Japan) and imported.
It is not easy to identify the origin of a piggy bank, 90% of them have no hallmark. Often it seems clear from which country they are, but the factory or potter that made them remains unknown. The possibility that a piggy bank is from Czechoslovakian origin is great, 25% of the piggy banks made before the Great War (1914-1918) were produced there. If the nice antique or vintage piggy bank you bought in the UK or USA has a stamp Foreign then this bank is made elsewhere (China, Japan) and imported.
An additional complication in identifying the origin of piggy banks is the fact that the moulds were traded all over the world. A nice piggy bank made in Germany can have a twin in the USA or Norway, etc.
The age of a piggy bank? 85% of the age puzzle can be solved if one knows the provenance of the piggy bank. Who owned it and when? Other identifiers are the kind of clay that was used, kind of glaze, the amount of crackle in the glaze.