Keeping It Tru With This Mysterious Prewar Steiff Doll

Hat's off to another great Steiff find! Here we have a lovely prewar Steiff doll that recently joined Steiffgal's hug. Her condition and coloring is stunning, and you can't help but admire her perfectly coordinated outfit - and how well she wears it! But behind this little gal are a number of really big mysteries. Take a look at Trude and see what makes here so intriguing from the product design and historical perspectives.

What we have here is a precious pressed felt faced doll named Trude. She is 35 cm, standing, three ways (head and legs) jointed, and excelsior stuffed. Her face is made from flesh colored felt, while her limbs and trunk are made from flesh colored linen. Her arms are floppy and hang loosely by her sides. Her arms are bent slightly at the elbows, and she has very defined fingers. Her face is highly textured, with chubby cheeks, a realistic mouth, pert nose, and lifelike blue glass eyes embedded in eye sockets. Her facial painting is lovely and done with a gentle hand. Even her little ears are sculpted just like a child's. She is finished with a blond mohair wig, which is seamlessly integrated into her head structure. Trude's IDs include her red rubber bracelet, tan colored tag, and teeny tiny prewar button. You can see her IDs close up in the photo below. 

Trude's outfit is adorable and fits her to a "t". She wears a white cotton "one-sie", which is trimmed with lace around the leg openings and bodice. It has thin little straps which fit over her shoulders to help keep it in place. Her short sleeved white cotton blouse is removable and closes in the back. It is cropped and detailed with red pull strings at the neck and arms. She wears a cotton dress that closes with two metal snaps and is detailed with a ruffle around the waist area. The fabric features yellow, blue, black, white, and green wildflowers on a red background. Her footwear also is removable and consists of white cotton socks and red felt Mary-Jane style shoes. And she retains her original red and yellow wide brimmed hat, which is trimmed and ties with a red silk cord.

Trude is super interesting for number of subtle reasons. Steiff's "pressed felt" face doll line was produced from 1937 through 1943, and then again in 1949 and 1950. Steiffgal cannot locate a c. 1930s-1950s era doll of her construction with that name. The fact that her name was written by hand on her tag suggests that only a few of these dolls with this name were made. But more on that in just a moment! Also of note is her construction. Many to most of these wartime era dolls were made entirely from felt, but this example has a felt head and a linen body and limbs. This may suggest that she was manufactured when fine toy making materials were unavailable or expensive due to wartime rationing or shortages - perhaps in the very 1930s to early 1940s. As a result, matching linen in the place of felt was used instead in less "visible" areas of the doll's anatomy. 

Trude is dressed and resembles one of Steiff's standard line production pressed felt faced dolls named Gretel. Gretel was made in 35 and 43 cm from 1938-1942 overall and is also dressed in a similarly styled red dress with snaps, a white blouse, and red felt shoes with white socks. The most obvious difference between Trude and Gretel in terms of outfits is that Gretel wears a red hairband, and Trude has an oversized felt hat. You can see a picture of Gretel here on the left, the image is from Pfeiffer's Sortiment 1892-1943.

So here is where there are more questions than answers about Trude. Was she made to substitute for Gretel in terms of her materials and construction? Was she perhaps a sample of some sort? Why doesn't she appear in any Steiff materials, as far as Steiffgal can locate? And why does she have a large, glorious felt hat... given the rest of her is constructed to minimize the use of this premier toy making fabric? Well, only she knows for sure... and unfortunately, she's not talking!

Steiffgal hopes this discussion on Steiff's terrific Trude doll has been a playful addition to your day. 

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