All Treats and No Tricks With These Tiny Orange Steiff Treasures

When you were a kid, what was your favorite Halloween score? For Steiffgal, it was Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. How times have changed! Today, a REAL hair-raising treat would be a palm sized Steiff goodie in a Halloween pail, wouldn't you agree? So, to celebrate this spooky season in a more grownup fashion, here are a few orange hued "snack sized" treats to satisfy your Steiff sweet tooth. (Please click on any photo to enlarge it for viewing and study.) 

It's hard to outfox this teeny tiny Steiff woolen miniature Pitty fox. He is sitting, measures 5 cm, and is made from orange and white woolen threads. His face comes to life with an itty-bitty black bead nose and eyes and felt ears. Steiff's woolen miniatures are often head jointed, but Steiffgal is not sure if this is the case here as he remains in his original cardboard and plastic packaging. Steiff created a series of ten Pitty woolen miniature animals in the 1977 through 1981 time frame; all were distributed in similar bubble style packaging. It is Steiffgal's best guess is that this is the case so they could be merchandised and sold off of a standard counter rack.

Steiffgal's also nuts over this woolen miniature squirrel. She is also from the "Pitty" line. She is begging, measures 5 cm, and is made from orange woolen threads. She has a peach colored base and hands, orange felt ears, and a black button nose and eyes. Like Pitty fox, it is not clear if she is head jointed or not. On the back of her cardboard packaging, she has a white paper price tag from Saks Fifth Avenue. It notes that she costs $5. Adjusted for inflation, $5.00 in 1980 is equal to $16.07 in 2018. Pitty squirrel certainly packs alot of personality into a very small presentation!

This next happy handful is a late 1920s-era Steiff Charly King Charles Spaniel dog. He has distinctive orange mohair highlights on his ears, backside, and tail. Most of Steiff's Charly dogs were produced with brown mohair highlights, so this one is a little more unusual. Charly is sitting and head jointed. He has extremely long fuzzy ears; large, childlike brown and black-pupil eyes; a very detailed facial seam structure; and a prominent tail. Steiff made this Charly pattern both sitting (10, 14, 17, 22, 25, 30, and 35 cm) and standing (7, 10, 12, 14, 17, 22, 25, and 36 cm) through 1939.

Charly likes to troop the colors with this similarly hued Bully the Bulldog. This white and orange mohair pup is 10 cm, sitting, head jointed, and made from orange and white mohair. Orange and white Bully dogs are a little rarer than black and white Bully dogs as they were in the line for fewer years. Bully's face and muzzle area are tan velvet. He has very large brown and black glass pupil eyes and a black, hand-embroidered nose. Most remarkably, Bully retains his original and traditional horsehair collar. This is made from a long, thin strip of material which is doubled over width-wise; the horsehair fibers are sewn in between the faces of the material. The horsehair collar was a typical pre-war accessory and indicated a "regal" nature of the item wearing it. Bully was made in velvet and mohair, as well as sitting and standing, in sizes ranging from 10 to 50 cm in the 1927 through 1937 time frame overall. 

And this discussion would be unbearable without a cub representative in the mix. Here we have a 6 cm Teddy Baby Replica 1930. He is technically cataloged as "maize" in color to reflect his corn colored hue. This tiny Ted is fully jointed and has all the traditional Teddy Baby characteristics - including downturned wrists, flat feet made for standing, and a charming, youthful face - albeit on a super small scale. Maize Teddy Baby appeared in the line from 1998 through 2001.

Steiffgal hopes you found this discussion of tiny orange treasures all treats and no tricks. 

Have a question about one of your Steiff treasures? Let's talk! Click here to learn more!

Wishing Steiff Collectors Around The World A Very Hoppy Easter!

In the mood for a handful of Easter cheer?  Then this petite post on a small scale Steiff rabbit should do the trick!  There is something so endearing, and so precious, about Steiff's teeny, tiny treasures.  Come see for yourself how size defies when it comes to this happy hopper!

Blink and you might miss this baby bunny.  He measures 8 cm tall (including his ears) and 7 cm wide.  He is unjointed and in Steiff's "lying" position, meaning his hind legs are curled under his backside.  His torso, the front of his ears, and his underside are made from short white mohair.  His body, face, and back of ears are made from tan mohair.  His darling face comes to life with a simple red hand embroidered nose and mouth, black and brown glass pupil eyes, and tan airbrushing.  This pattern was made in 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, and 17 cm from 1930 through 1943 overall.  This example has a short trailing "f" style button, dating him in approximately in the 1936 through 1943 time frame.  Another example of this pattern was sold at auction in 2014; you can see that honey-bunny by clicking here.

This tiny rabbit has a few really big details that make him quite interesting.  The first is his size.  For the most part, Steiff items are "measured" without ears and without tails, and vertically.  As such, if his ears are taken out of the equation, his "official" measurement is 6 cm.  This puts him in at the smallest size made in this pattern.  However, he is not the smallest size rabbit ever made by Steiff - not by a longshot! In the prewar era, Steiff manufactured rabbits as small as 4 cm in velvet or felt. 

His second feature has been lost to time, but not to history.  When this item left the factory in Giengen, he had two wooden dowels lightly sewn onto his legs - one between his front limbs and one between his hind limbs.  You can see a picture of this to the left; the photo is taken from Pfeiffer's 1892-1943 Sortiment book. This somewhat unusual, labor intensive step was done to keep the body position secure and in line during manufacturing, packing, shipping, and distribution.  This same process was also done on some of the company's Scotty dogs of the same era, but Steiffgal is not aware of any other examples of this dowel treatment.

Steiffgal hopes this discussion on this Easter hare-binger has been and egg-cellent adventure for you.