This Charming Steiff Doll Is Sugar And Spice And Everything Nice!

It's smooth sailing when it comes to this week's Steiff treasure! Steiffgal was asked by a friend to handle a wonderful vintage doll. When this sweetie arrived at Steiffgal's home, she was even more adorable and interesting than advertised. Come take a look at this early 20th century felt doll and see what secrets she holds!

This charming little girl is sugar and spice and everything nice. She is 28 cm, fully jointed, and made from flesh colored felt. Her precious and youthful face comes to life with a traditional Steiff center seam, blue and black pupil eyes, a 3D nose, set-in mouth, and proportional ears. Her mohair wig, which has faded to a silvery color, was most likely brown, given the color of its cotton backing. She wears a simple white cotton dress, a white cotton sailor's shirt trimmed in dark navy or black, great striped knitted socks, and red felt tie shoes with leather soles. Steiff produced this happy, childlike style of doll from around 1908 through the mid-1920's in standard sizes ranging from 22 to 75 cm.  

It's no clothes call when it comes to this beautiful girl's outfit. Steiffgal is not able to exactly match her dress and top to any listed in the standard Steiff reference books. However, given their materials and design, it is her best guess that they are original to her. One clue is the hook and eye construction on her dress. This closure system is very typical to Steiff doll clothing from the first quarter of the 20th century. It is also Steiffgal's suspicion that at one point she had some sort of underwear or underpants, as her dress length is a bit "revealing," at least for the period in which she was made. Steiff also usually produced their girl dolls with hats, and Steiffgal also thinks that this doll's hat, like her undergarments, must have been lost to time.

This doll is definitely a sole sister. Her red felt shoes appear original, except for a replaced tie. This shoe style was very popular on Steiff dolls from her time frame, but this is the first time Steiffgal has seen a pair in red. However, another Steiff doll wearing identical red shoes is pictured in Pfeiffer's 1892-1943 Steiff Sortiment book. Her socks are also original and really eyecatching; Steiffgal has a doll in her personal collection wearing very similar hosiery.

Now let's talk about this doll's birth year. As noted, this style of doll was produced in the general line for nearly two decades.  But she has a few clues that hone down this time frame a bit.  

First, note that her hands are very simple, almost fist-like. This style of hand was updated to a more distinctive hand with pronounced finger digits starting around 1910 or so. You can see a close up of this doll's early hands here on the photo on the left. 

Second, this dolls is made entirely from felt. This is a subtle, but important detail. Starting around 1915, Steiff started changing the fabrics on these dolls as a response to material shortages associated with WWI. Felt was an important fabric and was being used for uniforms and blankets at the time. Steiff's dolls, which were traditionally made from all felt, started to appear with felt faces, but their bodies and/or limbs could be made from linen or even inexpensive muslin fabrics. The body parts made from the substitute materials were mostly hidden under clothes. You can see a little boy doll here on the left with this World War I construction... his head and arms/hands are felt; his legs are linen, and his torso is muslin.

Third, this little girl doll has glass pupil in eyes. Steiff's earliest dolls had black shoe button eyes. Starting around 1909 or 1910, most were detailed with more lifelike, and more endearing, glass eyes.

All of these factors converge her year of origin to roughly 1910. The combination of fist hands and glass eyes is interesting, and indicates that she was made at a transitional time in the design and development of this beloved pattern.

Steiffgal hopes this discussion on this great sailor girl doll has been oceans of fun for you.

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

Taking The Chill Out Of Your Day With This Darling Steiff Snowman Puppet

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas... at least around these parts! This morning, Steiffgal had the unexpected pleasure (or pain, depending on your perspective) of waking up to snow showers in her town! And the white stuff got her thinking about one of her favorite little Steiff oddities that is coming more and more seasonally appropriate each day! Check out this happy handful to see why he's worthy of a round of applause!
 

Let's set the stage and introduce this great Steiff hand puppet. Here we have the company's Hand Sneba. The German word for snow is Schnee, so his name makes perfect sense. Sneba is 17 cm tall and made from a white synthetic fabric called dralon. He is detailed with black pom-pom style buttons up his front, an orange felt nose to resemble a carrot, a red hand embroidered mouth, shiny black eyes, and a black felt hat. When he was new, he had just a touch of pink on his cheeks and you can just barely make that out now on this example. Sneba's head and the tips of his hands are stuffed with excelsior. His button and yellow tag are located on the edge of the front of his body.  Like most snowmen, this one only lasted a very short period! He appeared in the Steiff catalog for one year only - 1964 - making him one of the rarer post war puppets created by Steiff.
 
Like many things we all know and love, Sneba has cold hands but a warm heart! And despite his unassuming looks and personality, he has three very interesting features from the collector's perspective. 

First is his design. Unlike the vast majority of Steiff puppets produced by the company before the early 1980's, Sneba appears to be a totally original design and not based on a popular standard line character. The only other somewhat period snowman designed item Steiffgal can think of is the 25 cm white wool plush snowman that the company designed as a US exclusive in 1955, who is pictured here on the left. However, as you can tell, there really isn't any design overlap between him and Sneba.  This photo is from Gunther Pfeiffer's 1947-2003 Steiff Sortiment book.

Second is his material. During Sneba's period of production, Steiff made most animal puppets out of mohair, and character puppets with molded heads and felt and/or fabric bodies - not dralon. Sneba is in good - but extremely rare - company with Hand Gora, Steiff's dralon gorilla puppet from 1961 through 1964. Gora is pictured here on the left for your review. She is 17 cm; her body and head are made from long and short grey dralon and her hands are made from short tan dralon.  Her face comes to life with peach colored tan felt ears, black and white google style eyes, and extensive airbrushed features.  

And topping up reason number three is his accessory. Sneba wears a handsome black felt chapeau. Like many of Steiff's legacy dolls, Steiff's earlier "people" puppets generally wore head wear to complement their well designed outfits. Except for Steiff's Hand Bear Sailor puppet from 1972 through 1975, Steiffgal cannot think of another Steiff non-human puppet donning a hat. Hand Bear Sailor is pictured her on the left for your review. He is made from a very golden yellow colored mohair. His head is hard stuffed with excelsior, while the rest of his body is floppy. His paws are made of tan velvet material. His face is detailed with large black and white google eyes and a black plastic nose. 

Steiffgal hopes this discussion of Steiff's interesting Sneba snowman puppet has taken a bit of the winter chill out of your day!

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