Rolling Out The Red Carpet For This Amazing Steiff Ball Rabbit

It's easy to have a ball with Steiff! Especially when it comes to the company's tiny and wonderful "baby balltier" or ball animals designed for babies. Steiffgal recently had the pleasure of adding one of these bitty bunnies to her Steiff hug. Check out what makes these unusual novelties so interesting from the historical and product development perspectives.

Rounding things out, this adorable, 9 cm tall bunny is head jointed and made from tan colored mohair. His body is a simple, round form about the size of an apricot. His head is about the size of a ping-pong ball and is detailed with black and brown glass pupil eyes and a simple, red hand embroidered nose and mouth. His ears are made from felt. Rabbit's two front limbs and little tail are all made from tan colored woolen pom-poms. His clear monofilament whiskers have unfortunately been lost to time. This ball rabbit pattern was made from 1934 through 1943. This excellent example has a long trailing "F" button, dating him to the earlier part of this time frame.

Steiff also produced a larger 15 cm version of this bouncing bundle of joy from 1932 through 1942. This bigger bunny featured dimensional mohair ears and limbs as well as a rubberized, pastel colored ribbon band so he could be used as a "toss and catch" toy or perhaps even as a pram toy. This ribbon feature is so ephemeral that Steiffgal has never actually seen one in person. The 15 cm version of this novelty is pictured here on the left; the photo is from Pfeiffer's Steiff 1892-1943 Sortiment.

Steiff rolled out a series of teeny-tiny ball animals starting in the early 1930s. This would prove to be a challenging decade for the company. Germany entered a period of economic depression and widespread unemployment in 1929. At the same time, growing overseas sentiment began negatively impacting Steiff's export markets. As a result, Steiff's product development strategy included focusing on creating a range of lower-tier (i.e. affordable and efficient to produce) products for their domestic market to keep their toymaking business viable. It is interesting to note that the company's inexpensive, palm sized woolen miniature animals (including numerous rabbits in various body positions) also debuted around this same time. 

Coming full circle, Steiff produced about eight types of ball style animals overall. These were all based on simplified patterns of the company's most popular designs of the time. In addition to the rabbits discussed above, the collection also included Teddy bears, elephants, ducks, cats, lions, a Chin-Chin dog, and a Molly the Puppy. What's amazing about these items is that any survived at all given they were made to fit in the palm of a child's hand and designed as toys for youngsters! Here on the left you can see the page from the 1938 Steiff catalog featuring an assortment of these well-rounded items. 

Steiffgal hopes this discussion on these charming Steiff baby toys has put you in a playful mood indeed.

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