This collection brings together three of the famous NatWest pigs: Woody, Annabel and Maxwell. All three are in good condition and would make a great starting point for anyone looking to build a complete NatWest pig family.

Woody is in excellent condition with stopper. Annabel retains her original NatWest stopper and is in excellent condition. Maxwell also retains his original NatWest stopper and is in excellent overall condition, with just a small area of wear to the back of his neck where his tie sits.

Other than these points, the three pigs are in great condition especially considering their age and that they were originally given to children and display very well together.

As the Wade NatWest Pigs were finished by hand, no two are exactly alike. Small variations in paint coverage, glaze and casting are to be expected, and these tiny manufacturing imperfections are part of their original production. Rather than detracting from their appeal, these little differences contribute to each pig's individuality, giving it its own character and a unique little piece of history dating back to the day it was made. All part of their enduring, endearing collectible charm.

They would make a lovely start putting together the complete NatWest family. Equally, with three pigs in one lot, they could make a particularly charming choice if you have three children or grandchildren and are looking for a little piggy bank for each of them.

Whether kept together as a collection or given their own place in the family, these three familiar characters offer a lovely little piece of British banking nostalgia.

It's interesting to wonder what the story is behind this set.

Back in the 1980s, a child opening their account would receive Woody, the baby pig, with the initial £3 deposit. If they kept saving and their balance reached £25, Annabel followed. Reach £50 and Maxwell joined the family. Keep going and there were still two more pigs to collect: Lady Hilary at £75 and Sir Nathaniel at £100.

So when I look at these three together, I can't help wondering whether they once belonged to a determined young saver who managed to reach the £50 milestone. Did a child proudly bring each new pig home as their savings grew? Did Woody sit on a bedroom shelf before Annabel arrived, and then Maxwell finally complete the first three?

Or perhaps these three have found each other much more recently, brought together by someone who remembers the NatWest pigs from childhood and wanted to create part of the family for themselves.

There is no way of knowing their individual story now, and perhaps that is part of the charm. What we do know is that getting as far as Maxwell meant that somebody had saved enough to reach that £50 milestone. Whether these three pigs once belonged to one young collector or have been reunited decades later, they have certainly made it further than many of their little ceramic relatives.

And I rather like to imagine that somewhere, there was once a child who looked at these three lined up together and thought: "Just two more to go."

The familiar NatWest piggy bank became one of the most recognisable pieces of British banking memorabilia, particularly through NatWest's efforts to encourage children to develop the habit of saving.

The pigs were given individual names and became a family of characters: Woody, the baby, was joined by his sister Annabel, brother Maxwell, mother Lady Hilary and father Sir Nathaniel Westminster. The idea was a clever way of encouraging children to save, with each new pig unlocked as their savings grew.

The first pig, Woody, was given when a child opened a NatWest Piggy Account with a minimum of £3. As the balance increased, the next members of the family could be earned: Sister Annabel at £25, Brother Maxwell at £50, Lady Hilary at £75 and finally Sir Nathaniel at £100. This gave young savers another reason to keep putting money into their account as they worked towards collecting the complete family.

What started as a children's savings incentive soon became a memorable part of British banking culture. The named characters, the idea of collecting the family and the different savings milestones helped turn a simple ceramic money box into something children could become attached to - and decades later, the pigs have themselves become collectable pieces of 1980s memorabilia.

There is something particularly interesting about objects such as these because they sit somewhere between banking history and everyday social history. They were never originally designed to be valuable antiques or collector's pieces. They were ordinary ceramic money boxes, given to children to encourage them to save - and, inevitably, some must have had a rather shorter life than others. How many ended up dropped, knocked from a shelf or simply broken open when a child decided it was time to spend the savings inside is impossible to know.

That makes the surviving examples all the more interesting. More than a million NatWest piggy banks were issued during the original scheme, but many will have disappeared over the years through everyday use, damage or simply being thrown away. The ones that remain offer a small and rather charming reminder of a time when saving money could be turned into a game, with each new pig representing another milestone reached.

Today, surviving examples can provide a small glimpse into the way banks interacted with their customers and, particularly, how saving was introduced to younger generations.

That is perhaps what makes these little pigs worth preserving. They may have started life as simple promotional money boxes, but for many people they became reminders of childhood, family savings and a very different era of British banking.

And perhaps some were never really seen as something to collect at all. A parent may have kept the pigs their child received, tucked away in a cupboard after they had grown up, or a grandparent may have held on to them as a reminder of a son or daughter's childhood. Perhaps some even became family keepsakes, passed down to another generation, with a different pig saved for each child or grandchild.

We may never know how many of the original pigs were kept for those reasons, but it is an appealing thought. What began as a way of encouraging children to save could, years later, become something worth saving in its own right.