“Someone had a thing for pigs,” I said to a woman standing next to me as she craned her neck to see inside a cardboard box full of small pig figurines. The box was at the end of a long row of tables at the auction house, surrounded by other boxes of pigs in all sizes, materials and colors.
“But not good ones,” the woman quipped. She was right but dismissive in the face of a collection that someone had probably spent a large bit of time and money on. And the buying for this one seemed to have gone on for a long time, because the collection was overwhelming.
The only other pig item that had caught my eye – and not at auction – was a folk art painting at an antiques mall in my home state of Georgia two years ago. It was a painting of a black and white pig’s body with human feet, and titled “Pig Feet.”
At this auction, the pigs seemed to be the most interesting items on the tables. A cobalt blue pig and what looked like a macramé pig stood out among the wooden, ceramic and stone pigs – all looking as if they were purchased at department stores or flea markets.
Who collects pigs? I wondered. They’re good for eating – for those people who eat pork. They root around in the mud (do they still do that these days?). They don’t necessarily make good pets – although some folks do own the pot-bellied ones.
I have a history with pigs: I grew up on a farm, and I know how dirty and messy pigs and hogs can be. I even had a cousin whom we called Pig (don’t know why since I don’t recall her being porky). It never occurred to me to collect representations of the creatures as a hobby. But some people do and they have a story to tell about how they got started, while others don’t know why they do it. They bought one pig figurine and the hobby took off, fueled by people who kept giving and giving and giving them pigs.
Singer Janet Jackson was apparently one of the latter. She was said to have gotten into collecting pig stuff some years ago, but gave it up after people kept giving her so many of them.
This collector described growing up with animals in the yard and a mother who labeled her children’s behavior as piggish. A British woman made it into the Guinness Book of World Records with more than 16, 700 pig figurines, stuffed toys and piggy banks. Here’s another collector with 14,000 items. And this collector actually has some lovely items that I’m sure the snooty auction-goer would find worthy.
When I went searching online for collectors, I was reminded of that common of pig items that we all likely remember: piggy banks. Stashing pennies and dimes out of sight for some item we just had to have. The bank may not have looked like a pig but its function was the same.
Online sites were selling pig figurines, cookie jars, cake toppers, political charms, figural bottles in pig shapes (most once contained whiskey), salt and pepper shakers and Steiff (as in the famous bears) stuffed pigs. Some of the animals were made by such companies as Heisey, Fenton and Cambridge. Shawnee Pottery – which early on sold its ceramic products through some five-and-dime stores – apparently made them, too.
I even came across a group of people calling themselves “Friends of Freddy.” Freddy was the talking pig from a series of books from the early to mid-20th century by Walter R. Brooks. If you’re born in the Year of the Pig in Chinese culture, you can look forward to an easy life (and an ever better one if you’re born in the Year of the Golden Pig).
At the auction, the boxes of pigs went for modest prices: from $2 to $10 per box. The original owner probably paid a lot more for just one of them.
