About Bear
The Evolution of the Teddy Bear
Since the Teddy Bear’s birth in 1902, he has gone through many changes which have been both internal and external.
When Richard Steiff first created him, he was born out of Richard’s famous sketches of ‘real’ bears and because of this the first Teddy Bears, produced by Steiff looked a lot like a real life bear, with his humped back and his rather pointed features. However, like most new creations, the Teddy Bear took on a number of different designs and appearances during his early years. Richard Steiff never grew tired of varying the bears appearance, often adapting him to suit the style of the times.
One of Steiff’s biggest difficulties with the first Teddy Bears was it’s joints. Various methods of jointing the bears were used at first including string and rod joints. Along with varying the Teddy Bears jointing methods, new stuffing materials were tested and used and later on even growlers were introduced.
Whether he likes it or not, the Teddy Bear has to stay ahead of the different styles and fashions of the times. As we mentioned earlier, the famous Steiff hump of their Teddy Bears was copied by many other early Teddy Bear makers, but gradually this hump grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared completely (today it has become quite desirable once again). The Teddy Bear’s ears grew bigger, then smaller, his eyes changed from glass to plastic and from boot-button to real looking eyes and his nose continually changed over the years, at one point it became all the rage for some British Teddy Bears to have a plastic nose shaped like a dogs.
When materials became difficult to obtain due to the effects of war and/or economic difficulties, the Teddy Bear was made from Many Fabrics, including the famous Steiff Paper Bear, which was produced by Steiff in 1919. This rather unique Teddy Bear was infact produced from wood fibre. These amazing Teddy Bears were produced in five sizes under article numbers 5613, 5615, 5617, 5622 and 5628,2. He had a rather rough feel to him rather than the soft mohair that had previously been used, but don’t let that put you off of his appeal. He wore beautiful brown stitching and had black shoe-button eyes. The three smaller sizes of Paper Bear were produced up until 1920, while the two larger sized bears were made until 1921. Sadly, the material was not very hard-wearing which is why these bears are so rare to find these days. Recently the Paper Bear has been reproduced.
The Teddy Bears colour also changed going from the original real bear colours to some amazing blue, red and even a mixture of colours (for example the harlekin bear). All kinds of styles were produced by the various manufacturers including the famous Steiff Teddy Clowns, the Steiff Petsy, which has very different features to the usual Steiff Bears and even the Steiff Teddy Baby (some of these even had teeth would you believe).
Then the famous British Teddy Bear makers Merrythought, came along with their very famous Cheeky Bear, which caused an absolute storm in the Teddy Bear world. The Merrythought Cheeky Bear is radically different from the original Teddy Bear. He was and still is extremely popular all around the world.
Over the last few decades we have seen the Teddy Bear market deluged by Artist Teddy Bears. These bears can be seen as a real work of art. They can be nostalgic and of classic design or they can be really off-the-wall, and they often are. They can be made of absolutely any kind of material you can think of and it seems the wackier they are the better.
With the evolution of the Teddy Bear still going on, it has left a lot of Teddy Bear Collectors with a bit of a dilemma as to which Teddy Bears looks right when introduced to their collection.
At Ginos Bears, what we find interesting, being first and foremost suppliers of Old and Antique Teddy Bears, is, as any Teddy Bear grows old, he becomes unique in his looks and character, so unless you want to collect just new Teddy Bears and keep them in pristine condition, it is something to bear in mind when searching for a Teddy Bear to introduce to your hug. At Ginos Bears we often see a collector put a really old and really battered Teddy Bear alongside a very new and expensive Teddy Bear and it really works, we think they look super together, showing the true Evolution of the Teddy Bear.
The Teddy Bear has such an interesting history and, as we speak his shape and form is still changing.
About the Author
Gino loves fast cars, especially fast italian cars. Infact Gino loves anything Italian. Gino heads an Old Teddy Bear on-line store which specialises in supplying adorable Old Teddy Bears and Toys.
Please visit his website at www.ginosbears.co.uk
Lyle Lovett – Bears
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