Promo/ Souvenir - Pig Piggy Banks

Advertising with piggy banks needs a link with the item one wants to promote. A commercial bank and piggy banks? OK. But an economical car on LP gas? A bike? Albert Heijn (AH), the Dutch equivalent of Tesco or Wall Market?

The Albert Heijn concern created a piggy bank with a text  (translated): "Here you little one can put the money saved when buying AH products”. Nowadays a rare piggy bank!

In The Netherlands well known types of promotional piggy banks are the series commissioned by the NV Nationaal Spaarfonds (National Savings Trust). Like the National Westminster (NatWest) Bank in the UK they created over decennia promotional piggy’s. The inscription is in old Dutch: “Die bi mi spaert gheluck vergaert”, translated: “Who saves with me will gather (good) luck”.

With the development of the railway system in the 19th century, and the introduction of bank holidays, tourism flourished. Everyone wanted to bring back a little memento of their day-trip, and in the 1880s William Henry Goss developed a new kind of porcelain for this growing tourist market - ivory-coloured ceramic miniatures, hand-painted with the crests of towns and modelled on famous buildings, monuments and objects of local interest. Fun, affordable and small enough to be carried home in the daintiest handbag. this crested china was an instant success and provided the perfect souvenir. You could only buy specific coat-of-arms in its town of origin, and when you showed off your model of Blackpool Tower, all the neighbours would know where you'd spent your holidays. A host of other potteries jumped on the heraldic china bandwagon. producing tiny ceramics in every conceivable shape from seaside subject to comic characters.