Vintage Bear Profiles #2: c.1908 Steiff, "Annie"

Annie is a rather adorable 9.5" Steiff bear, dating to around 1908. She has pretty good mohair coverage for a lady of almost 100 years old! Sadly she lost her Steiff button many years ago, but even worse than that, she lost her right arm as well! I don't know how this came to be, seeing as she was in this condition when she came to live with me. I imagine it might have been the case that she was carried around by that arm in her younger days, when she was most likely a child's toy. This could have caused a lot of damage to the arm and it may have been too difficult to repair, hence the "amputation". Of course there could be a whole range of reasons for her arm being removed, and no amount of speculation will yield any definitive answers!

Little Annie is a cheery little soul despite having lost her arm. She doesn't seem to mind one bit, but then she is happy with the company she keeps; Annie and Fritz are always together, you see.







Annie's mohair is in good condition and she has good coverage, as I mentioned above. She retains her original nose stitching and original boot button eyes. She has, however, lost her mouth stitching. Despite this, she still looks like a happy little girl to me!

Here Annie is pictured wearing a shawl that was hand-knitted for her myself, and some "precious pearls" (!) around her neck (she likes a bit of glamour!)

Vintage Bear Profiles #1: c.1915 Steiff, "Fritz"

Fritz is a c.1915 cinnamon Steiff bear, measuring approximately 13" tall. He still retains the all-important button in ear, a trademark patented by Steiff in 1904. Fritz, as you can see from the photos, is in far from mint condition! He is missing a substantial amount of his cinnamon mohair and he has areas of damage to his muzzle area and his paw pads, some of which have been repaired rather poorly. He also has a few holes in his mohair. It is well known that vintage cinnamon bears don't tend to survive that well; this is due to the fact that the dye used to create the cinnamon colour weakened the mohair significantly. Cinnamon bears in good condition are hard to come by, and command high prices when they do show up. Fritz has obviously been very well loved over the years. He came with some written provenance from his previous owner, which details a rather sad story about his past.

I intend to have Fritz restored in the not-so-distant future, so as to preserve as much of him as possible. His nose damage stands out at the moment because at some point in the past he has had some rather obvious 'repairs' - if you can call them that! I think he will be much happier if these repairs are done more sensitively, so as not to be a focal point!

I do think Fritz is a character - despite all his 'flaws' he looks like a happy bear, and given his history he's done well to keep his 'chin up'.

I have dressed Fritz in some knitted clothes I bought for him because of him being so fragile. The clothes should help to protect him from any further damage and keep him warm! He also wears some baby booties to protect his fragile paw pads which would otherwise possibly leak stuffing (these booties were actually made for low birth weight babies, but they fit his large feet rather well!)



Fritz is a charming old Steiff - considering he's over 90 years old, he's doing pretty well really!