Day 199... Collecting Money

In looking up the earliest yellow ware in England, the roots of my present yellow ware, for the upcoming exhibition at UCONN. I found hundreds of medieval pots on the London Museums web site. I also found many "money boxes".  Money.We all need money. I am trying to find a piece of pottery that I can market as a one-of-a-kind historical item, and here it is.  I had been working on a "money bank" already. I had made a model of my house, a copy of the one I want to save from the tax man. The model was finished, fired and I had made a plaster mold. I wanted to use red clay for the finished casting, seeing that my house is red brick. But the finished castings kept sticking to my new plaster mold.  I was using up too much of the red clay slip and was getting poor results.

Casting is not my expertise.  I cast some small statues and over the years, have mixed my own throwing clay scraps into a casting slip with good results. But I realized that the process of casting a bank and waste of slip was going to be prohibitive in producing many of the banks.

Then I saw these money boxes.  Hundreds were found at the Rose Theatre in London. The Rose Theatre was built in 1587. Pretty old stuff over the pond, my "old" house seems new by comparison.  By 1606, the theatre was abandoned, eventually torn down and years upon years of development covered over the theatre's foundation.
http://www.rosetheatre.org.uk/about/history.php

Artist drawing of the Rose Theatre

In 1988, a 1950s office block was torn down revealing the foundation of The Rose and a team of archaeologists moved in to uncover the past.  Among the objects uncovered were Money Boxes.

Now the mystery of how and why they were used. I still haven't figured it all out, but the shape and size of these boxes indicate that that they were small so they could be tied onto a wooden pole and passed among the threatre audience for collection fees. Most of the money boxes (which are not money boxes at all, but small round clay pots) had knobs on the top and a large slanted slit in the side. The shape of the slit may have prevented money from being shaken out by the audience or the ushers and the pot had to be broken to get the coins out. If they were larger, the heavy coins of the day would have weighed down the pot on the pole.



Excavation of the Rose Theatre



How perfect that these fit into my current situation. I am to present these reproduction charming little pots from Elizabethan England to collect money for my old building! 

And what will you and I use these "boxes" for? Well, we can tie them on a pole and collect money at our own events. We can set them on a shelf for loose change. We can give them to the parents of new babes for college savings. We can use them to remember a time in history when no paper money existed and a coin was all that was needed to see a Shakespearean play.




Coins found at the Rose Threatre

 

In Middle English, "pygg" referred to a type of clay used for making various household objects such as jars. People often saved money in kitchen pots and jars made of pygg, called "pygg jars". By the 18th century, the spelling of "pygg" had changed and the term "pygg jar" had evolved to "pig bank."

Of course, you will have to break them to get your money out. Old clay banks were very common.  Makers of Yellow Ware in the USA and England, did not put an cork in their banks. This is one of the reasons the antique, quaint banks are so pricey today.

 



Antique yellow ware banks



My first Money Pots came out of the glaze fire this morning. Tomorrow, Day 120, I will post photos of my money pots.

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