Hasta La Ideas

Not all coin banks are piggy banks intended to encourage children to save. As a professional organizer, I became interested in these products when I saw clients with coins spilling all over the nightstand or dresser top. Sure, they could just put those coins in a simple jar, but they might enjoy using a well-designed coin bank more. 

Les Gloutons ceramic banks, designed by Atelier Peekaboo, have a top slot for inserting the coins and a spout for pouring them out. It’s a simple, functional design that would work for many users.

The coin storage dish from Ideaco has wide slot, making it very easy for people to insert their coins. The wood bottom twists off, making it easy to get the coins out (except, perhaps, for a user with arthritis). With its resting place for keys, this coin dish would work especially well for users who like to empty both coins and keys from their pockets at the same time.

For users with no patience for feeding multiple coins through a slot, there’s the Coink bank from Mint. Coins get dumped out through the same opening.

Bankabank lets users shove coins through the slot in the large front plug, which is removable when they want to get to those coins.  Since the Bankabank is made from soft PVC, there’s no worry about it getting broken as there could be with a ceramic (or glass) product. It’s also a bank that users could grab and take with them if they expected to need a lot of coins. 

The hand-blown glass banks from Roost would work well for users who enjoy seeing their coins accumulate. There’s a slot on the top for adding coins; the large cork would be easy to remove to get at them. 

The Maraca coin bank designed by João Gonçalves is a neat idea: a bank that becomes a maraca as the user adds coins. Gonçalves provides some capacity information, which is welcome; the Maraca holds about 250€ in 1€ coins.

However, this is a design where the bank must be broken to get to the coins. That’s OK for users who are using a coin bank as a savings device and need some encouragement to not raid the bank, but it’s not good for those who are simply using a bank to hold coins for future use.

The VIMB plywood money box from Praktrik is also a puzzle, although supposedly not a very difficult one. The flat-pack design allows the user to easily store the money box away if it’s not needed for a while. But I don’t know any user who really wants the assembly of a useful product to also be a puzzle. 

The New York Times calls the NOLA money box from Internoitaliano an “adult piggy bank” since it’s designed to hold bills rather than coins. However, I have yet to see anyone really struggling with a place to put extra banknotes; coins are the problem for the adults I know. So this is a lovely product that doesn’t seem to address any real need, at least for those in the U.S. It’s also unclear whether or not there’s any way to remove the bills without breaking the money box.

The Duell from Konstantin Slawinski, designed by Ding300, is intended for dueling purposes: two people competing on savings, one person working toward two different savings goals, etc. But it doesn’t have to be used that way; the two slots could be used for two different denominations (the most commonly used coin vs. everything else, perhaps) or for two different household members with no duel implied. The red silicone wrapper is removable, exposing larger slots that allow the coins to be shaken out. 

Some users may have limited space for a coin bank on a nightstand, dresser or other flat surface; such users might appreciate a design like the hanging vertical coin banks from Revol Design, available in three sizes to meet varying storage needs and space limitations. The coins are emptied out by removing the magnetic latch on the bottom.

The banks were designed for U.S. coins, with “two sheets of clear acrylic spaced precisely apart to allow the thickest coins, nickels, to fit while preventing the thinnest coins, dimes, from overlapping.” However, there is also a euro-compatible version, and the bank will work some other currencies, too. This is a good reminder of how international differences need to be accounted for in product designs intended for a global audience.