Prettier Than A Picture!

Picture the next great Steiff mystery! It might involve an unusual shape, size, or color of one of the company's beloved antique rarities. Or, it just might be about... a photograph. Check out this note from Kathryn from New York about this antique family image of her Grandfather and his Teddy bear. How would you frame your response? She shares:

"I’m sending you this beautiful photo of my grandfather who raised me. Unfortunately we do not have the bear anymore. I’m doing an oil painting of this photo and I want to do justice to the Teddy bear in the picture. I think it looks like a Steiff.

The mystery is why is the tag on the right ear instead of the left? It seems to have all the other features of a Steiff. I was hoping for your thoughts on this if you don’t mind.

My grandpa Henry is of German decent and was born in Jersey City in 1899. The photo was taken by a photographer in New York City. I think he is under the age of 10 in the photo so that would give us an idea of the bears age. I would also like to know the color you think it is for the painting. I started to paint it in a beige color with dark brown nose and lips and black eyes which are hard to see from the angle. This is the clearest copy I can get.

I just think this is such a beautiful photo of a child with his beloved Teddy bear.

I’m anxiously looking forward to hearing what you think. Is it some kind of rare thing? Or is it an imitation?

Thank you for your time and knowledge.
Sincerely, Kathryn" 

Ok, let's first focus our attention on the actual photograph. It is Steiffgal's best thinking that the picture was actually "flipped" at some point. This might have happened years ago, during the printing from the negative, or sometime more recent, via an "electronic" step. If you take the mirror image of the photo, the button is clearly in the right place and in the correct ear. And, if you look really, really closely, Steiffgal thinks you can even make out some part of an ear tag, too. You can see both versions of the photograph in the image here - both the "original" and "mirror" image. 

Now for a little color commentary. Given the hue contrasts, appearance, and scale of the bear in the photograph, it is Steiffgal's best thinking that he is most likely a white Steiff bear in the roughly c. 25 to 35 cm range from the c. 1906-1909 timeframe. And why is that?  

(For reference, here on the left we have two white Steiff cubs from about the same era as Henry's; the big boy is 40 cm tall and the little guy is 22 cm tall.) 

1. First, the date is pretty clear given the information provided by Kathryn. The photo is from about 1909. The bear could have been made a few years earlier than that - as early as about 1906, given its presentation. The Schwarz brothers started carrying Steiff in their stores here in America in 1906, and were the first stores to do so. 

2. Now the size. This has to be estimated purely through "back of the envelope" techniques. Today, an "average" 10 year old boy is 55 inches tall or about 140 cm. Henry could have been much taller, or shorter, than this - there is is no way of knowing. But given he was "average," his bear appears to be roughly about 20 to 25% of his height, putting his bear in at c. 28 to 35 cm tall. And although it's impossible to tell with certainty from the antique picture, it appears that Henry's bear may have a horizontally stitched nose - given there is no "prominent" vertical center stitch visible. This also hints that the bear is less than 40 cm tall. 

3.  And last but not least, his color. The bear is pretty much the "lightest" object in the shot. And his nose is not very dark - like Henry's hair or eyes. This suggests the nose is brown - and in turn, that the bear was white. 

Steiffgal hopes this photograph has given you a delightful snapshot of Steiff's enduring quality and appeal.

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