my photos

steiff bear ...

If you would like a few bears but have very little space to give them a home, collecting miniatures is the answer, I only have a handful, the smallest being 4 inches and the tallest being 7 inches, but I am pleased to have them, they are so sweet and each has its own individual character!

Meet Gainsborough, my favourite bear, he is the tallest measuring in at a staggering 7 inches standing and wears a short-pile coat, he has a small hump on his back and fairly long arms, beige pads with four black thread embroidered claws on both hands and feet, small jet black button eyes just outside the face seams, which is an identifying factor of Steiff, and a horizontally stitched nose.

Steiff had a major setback in the 1970s, a falling birthrate cut the market, and cheap Asian imports brought competition. Steiff tried out cheaper toys without success, but by the end of the decade the ‘great bear revival’ allowed them to go the other way producing more expensive ‘super-bears’.