In the 1970's, Luigi Colani took a break from designing the future to create a little elephant-shaped bank for Dresdner Bank to give out to the kids. One has found its way to Lancaster, PA, and from thence to eBay, where it's currently clocking in at about $27.
If you miss this one, Metropolis lists a green one on their website for $100, which gives you a lot of room to bid--and save!
COLANI Elephant Plastic BANK, currently $20.50+ $6 s/h, auction ends Nov. 28 [ebay]
Metropolis, Lancaster's premier source for indie vinyl toys and vintage vinyl furniture [metropolis-store.com]
Whoa. Our biomorphic future, courtesy of Luigi Colani [colani.de]
Sorry to quibble, but it's Dresdner Bank.
They actually came in 2 sizes, small and larger, plus jumbo, which was only at the bank.
When I lived in Germany in the 70s, the bank gave these out to kids when you went in to deposit to your passbook savings account, and we liked them so much we made quite a few deposits, ending up with a collection of several elephants in dark green (the bank's corporate color), light green, and orange. I guess the idea was to fill them with change and then bring them to the bank for deposits, (other banks gave out piggie banks) but we liked them so much, we kept them.
Now I wonder if my mom still has them in the basement or threw them away?
[yeah, I was typing blind on that, sorry. Glad to hear there were larger sizes, though. 7cm is pretty small for a bank. -ed.]
I've seen elephants like these in a local flea market (Brighton, UK), but they are presumably copies, and branded with British banks. He obviously started a trend.
My brother and I each have full sets of porcelain pig families made by NatWest. Potentially valuable but much less attractive than this lovely elephant.
These elephants are NOT designed by Luigi Colani!
Have look at:
http://www.colani.jp/TheColaniLine/yesorno/Dresdner/yesorno1.htm