A few weeks ago, Jim Gray had a collection of 1,180 toy banks but as of this week his collection numbered 1,193. The banks multiply at an amazing rate because, though he purchases many of them himself at rummage sales, his friends and family members keep gifting him with new little money savers.
As a result, he's constantly having to go back and tally them up again.
"Yup! There are 1,193 now. I got a new one from a friend just last weekend," he said.
Try to imagine more than a 1,000 little banks and your mental image will likely fall short because Gray's collection lines the walls of three basement bedrooms.
The toys mimic every cute animal shape possible so there aren't just piggy banks in Gray's basement (although that collection alone takes up one full room).
There are also different varieties of building-shaped banks as well as vaults and safes and at least three outhouse-shaped banks. The banks are made of every imaginable material, including cast iron, plastic, ceramic and wood. Some banks flash, some dance and some – when you pull the lever – utter trite sayings.
Gray, 82, got his first bank from his mother in 1937, when he was six years old. The clock-shaped bank has a metre mechanism that counts the money as it is deposited. Even now, if Gray puts a coin in the slot, the dial moves over a notch and totals the amount of money saved.
"When you get to $9.99 it automatically opens," said Gray, who noted that once, when he was still quite small, he decided he needed a nickel out of his stash, but there was no way to easily open the bank.
"I needed a nickel for something so I pried it open," he said, still marvelling at the fact that this mother was able to send the toy back to the manufacturer to get it repaired.
"She sent the bank to New Hampshire and they sent it back after they repaired it. They also sent a cheque for the amount of money that was inside, less the 25 cents it cost for handling charges."
While the bank's original purpose is obvious, Gray doesn't credit it with turning him into a fervent saver.
"I suppose that was her original intent," he said with a smile.
He collected pennies for a time but recently traded them in for just over $400. Instead, it's the toys themselves that fascinate him.
Some are old, such as a book-shaped one from the Canadian Bank of Commerce. The palm-sized bank has a place for a tiny key and features a printed sales-pitch message that invites the owner to collect small change and then deposit it in a bank account.
Another friend gave him a bank made out of an old Velveeta cheese box. The bottom of the bank is missing but still, Gray has a nostalgic attachment to the thing.
"Velveeta used to come in wooden boxes like this and someone went to the trouble to take the box and cut a slot in it for a coin. But it's like most of my boxes, it came from a friend. A friend saw it and said, 'I gotta buy this for Jim Gray!'"
The irony
Gray has studied his own collection a bit to try to understand the irony of saving banks instead of money.
He and his wife Pat have lived in St. Albert for 40 years and brought their children up here. He was a salesman all his life, working for Wilson's Stationery for a time and later, before he retired, he was a distributer for World's Finest Chocolates.
He has an easy-going friendly kibitzing way about him, and like many salesmen, he always has a ready joke and a quick saying or turn of phrase. So it's not surprising that he likes these banks. They make him smile.
Pat shares the humour too and although she doesn't collect them for herself, she likes the jokes.
"Here, put a penny in here," she invites, at the same time as she gingerly places an outhouse-shaped bank before a visitor.
Sure enough, when the penny is deposited, there's a toilet-humour type of bang as the little balsa wood bank falls apart. The surprise causes great merriment for everyone involved.
Even the phrase "piggy bank" is a play on words, which Gray enjoys.
"The first piggy banks in England weren't really pig-shaped but they were pots made from a kind of clay called pygg. People stuffed their money in them and someone got the idea of making piggy-banks," he said.
He ponders the different shapes and ideas represented in the various banks lining his walls and at the same time wonders about the people who manufactured them.
"It amazes me that someone, somewhere thinks up all these shapes. Imagine the guy in China somewhere making them. Someone asks him what he does for a living and he says, 'I make piggy banks, sir!' "
He admits his growing collection is a problem at times because he has to keep building more shelves, but there's no stopping him now. He even sent a letter to Guinness Book of Records to tell them about the quantity of his collection.
"I haven't heard from the Guinness folks. But once you get going, it's hard to quit. I was going to quit when I got to 300, then I got two more. Well what do you do then?" he asked.
All the many different banks have one thing in common, however. They don't have money in them.
"The first thing I do when I buy one is I shake it. Then I take all the plugs out of them," Gray said.
Instead of saving change, his collection makes him smile and gives visitors a chuckle. Gray looks at them and remembers the time he bought them as well as the friends and family members who brought home a bank for him from their own holidays.
"Besides, for an old guy like me," he said, "at Christmas or birthdays, people can always find something to give me and that's another piggy bank."
