Heritage Toys: Steiff Animals

The German company Steiff is one of the most collectable names for vintage teddy bears and stuffed animals, but the company is still in existence and making toys today. They have managed to keep their reputation for quality for over 120 years.

The business was started in 1880 by Margarete Steiff, who for all of her life had been restricted to a wheelchair due to having polio as a baby. For something to do, she began making pincushions in the shape of elephants to sell to her friends. These pincushions started to be played with by children rather than used for their original purpose, and so she decided to change her focus to toys, and expanded the range to include other animals. The company took off and eventually became a family concern, with her brother and nephew both joining.

It was her nephew Richard who in 1902 invented the world's first teddy bear. The teddies were distributed in America and became wildly popular. By 1904 the company was having such problems with counterfeits that they decided to place a small button in the ear of each bear to mark their work. The button became a Steiff trademark and are still used in the animals they produce today.

While Steiff are famous for their bears, I actually prefer their animals. They have an enormous amount of character and I love some of the more unusual animals they make. Here are some of my favourites from the Steiff UK website.

This lion is over a metre long and costs £3000!