Posted on 05/18/2026 10:32:56 AM PDT by BenLurkin
A Texas beachcomber dredged up more than five dozen piggybanks that washed ashore from the Gulf of America but no one’s quite sure where they came from.
Jace Tunnell, a marine biologist with the Harte Research Institute, discovered 60 brightly-colored piggy banks on several beaches in South Texas this year — including 14 in just one day.
Tunnell told 12NewsNow that all of the discarded banks he’s collected, plus dozens found by other scavengers on the Bolivar Peninsula and South Padre Island, originate from South American or Caribbean countries.
“Once these piggy banks have been used, you’ll notice there’s a bunch of cuts in them. There’s no other way to get the money out, so people dispose of them, whether it’s directly in the ocean or on land,” Tunnell told the outlet.
Some of the banks appeared to have never been used, as if they were ditched immediately after purchase or even by the distributors themselves.
Two dirty plastic piggy banks, one green and one pink, rest on a wet sandy beach near the water. 4 The piggy banks are all defective. Kill 3 News Tunnell theorized the banks floated with ease because they were empty they floated with ease — and were likely pulled into currents that led them to the Texas coast,
Tunnell hasn’t found a single cent in any of the 60 piggy banks he’s retrieved, and warned aspiring treasure hunters not to get their hopes up.
Even with decades of marine expertise under his belt, Tunnell can’t say for certain why the banks are turning up in droves.
“Maybe the Gulf is just saving up for something big, one pig at a time,” Tunnell suggested in a column with the Caller Times.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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“Woke up this morning, don’t believe what I saw...”
Container ships sometimes lose containers overboard during storms, etc...
Sort of like the Garfield Phones that keep washing ashore in france.
ChiNUH via cuber?
might have been used to smuggle drugs
Any current sea in them?
All that time in the Gulf and they don’t have a scent? Sounds fishy to me.
We had glass ones from the dimestore when we were kids. You just had to turn them upside down and shake until you got the coins out if you didn’t want to hammer them...
I am pretty sure they did not come from a muslim country.
I would argue that they are NOT defective. They are designed to put money in and stop you from easily accessing it. You have to literally break it open to get the money out. It’s designed to hoard and protect that money.
Food for thought...
How are they defective? Seems from the look of them, they’re simple enough? Missing stopper on the bottom?
Exactly... they were deliberately hard to get money out of. Like a real banker!
Yes remember the rubber ducks that ended up around the world.
If there was any money in them, they were mine.
“If there was any money in them, they were mine.”
Not yours. Per the article.
Eventually, the very last Plastic Piggy Bank will be washed to the shores. There may be a note attached:
“thee-ah-thee-ahh-’That’s All, Folks!!”
Signed: Porky le Pique!
I remember hearing about that cartoon movie.
“Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer & The Island of Misfit Toys”
Released in 2001, It was a straight to video animated Christmas adventure musical film.
It was supposed to be a sequel to the much more famous “Rudolph” cartoon.
Every so often, I can enjoy a cartoon movie, if it’s fun and well done, w/o being ‘excessively happy’.
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