Questions remain over ‘piggy bank’ found sealed inside wall in Evergreen

Piggy bank found in Evergreen in 2014.

I worked as a reporter and editor at the newspaper in Evergreen for 14 years, and during that time I got the chance to write some unusual stories. As chance would have it, the other day I found myself in a conversation about piggy banks with Monroe Journal publisher Bo Bolton and editor Mike Qualls. This reminded me of an unusual ‘piggy bank’ incident that occurred in Evergreen in September 2014.

On the morning of Sept. 25, 2014, Evergreen resident Jimmie Bradley called me at the Evergreen paper to report that workers at her home on Perryman Street had found an old “piggy bank” that had been sealed inside of a wall, behind an old shower, for years.

“They were in the bathroom doing some renovations and when they got into the wall behind the shower, they found the little bank tucked away in a cubby hole in the wall,” Bradley said. “It’s no telling who it belonged to or how long it has been there.”

The small, barrel-shaped bank was 2-3/4 inches tall and 1-3/4 inches across at the top. The child’s bank appeared to have been made out of tin or aluminum, and it was empty when workers found it.

The end of the barrel with a coin slot said “Congratulations” above the image of an oversized stork carrying a baby in a blanket. Beneath the coin slot were the words “THE MONROE COUNTY BANK, Monroeville, Ala.”

The coin slot featured a spring-loaded, sawtooth-style closure that kept money from falling out once it was dropped into the barrel.

The other end of the barrel encouraged the owner to “SAVE YOUR COINS AND HAVE A BARREL OF MONEY.” That end also indicated that the barrel was manufactured by Banthrico International in Chicago, Ill., a company that began making promotional items for banks and other companies in the 1930s. That end of the barrel also featured a keyhole.

“And I have no idea where the key might be,” Bradley told me at the time. “I don’t even know who it belonged to or how long it’s been here. It looks like maybe a small diary key or something like that would probably open it.”

Bradley said she didn’t know exactly how old her house was, but it had been there for decades, and she’d lived there since 1999. Prior to that, it was a rental house and was occupied by numerous families over the years.

“I run into people all the time who tell me that they used to live in my house,” she said in 2014. “So it’s no telling how many people have lived here since the house was first built. I imagine that one of their children must have put the barrel in the wall somehow and forgot about it.”

Those who have examined the barrel in 2014 noted that the bank was all metal and didn’t include any plastic, an indication that it was made decades ago, before plastic toys became commonplace.

Others noted that the stork-adorned barrel was probably a promotional item given away by either local hospitals or by the Monroe County Bank to customers with new additions to their families. The bank, which first opened in 1904, may have also given small banks of this type to customers who opened savings accounts for newborns.

“I just thought it was real neat,” Bradley said. “You just never know what’s behind the walls of these old houses.”

According to Banthrico’s Web site, Banthrico started making promotional coin banks in the 1940s. “Banthrico” is short for the “Banker’s Thrift Association,” which originally manufactured the coin banks. In their heyday, Banthrico made over 900 different kinds of metal banks and most were sold to financial institutions like the Monroe County Bank.