Middle Brother 5xJointed Steiff Zotty Teddy Bear All ID

The “Zotty Fairy” has paid me another visit! This guy falls in between his two brothers in size; his flag tells you that by means of his article number, 6328,02. The “28” indicates his size in centimeters, and the “02” tells you that he was made sometime between 1960 and 1964. To be absolutely precise, knowing JUST that number and nothing else, you might think that Zotty is from the next later series, which was made between 1965 and 1967. However, you DO have other information, like his glass eyes and early style raised script button with skinny letters. Together those attributes are strong evidence of Zotty’s early ‘60s date of birth.

Zotty is almost in exact accord with the catalogue, measuring a bit over 27 centimeters to the top of his head, about 10 3/4 inches. If you want to display him standing, you should allow a little more vertical space, and if you want to display him sitting—perhaps in that cute pose in my next-to-last image, the exact overhead clearance amount you’d need depends on his posture, but 9 inches or so should be fine.

I am tempted to say that Zotty is in very good condition, but my conservative side says stay with “good-plus.” On the other hand, I am sure there are some who would say his condition was excellent, without a second thought. My choice of “good-plus” reflects the fact that Zotty has more than one condition issue, none of which is egregious, but the fact that there are a few issues makes me a bit stricter in my evaluation. Of course, I mean that his good-plus condition is DESPITE his age, not the meaningless “for” his age.

Zotty’s color is almost uniform; his front bottom half is SLIGHTLY darker than the upper half and most certainly not the reddish hue my pictures make it seem. I believe that he must have been displayed sitting, and his legs were in shadow. By the way, that redness is in several of my images, and I apologize for my poor lighting.

Zotty’s felt parts have some fading too, more on his feet than on his paws. This is consistent with my speculation that he was displayed sitting, exposing the bottoms of his feet to sunlight—or at least not protecting them as well as they would be protected if he were displayed standing on them.

Zotty’s paw pads are closer to what I usually call “ripe cantaloupe.” The inside of his mouth is about as faded as his feet, but he retains a healthy dollop of rose-colored airbrushing—and much more toward the back of his mouth where it has also been protected from light.

The final area of fading is Zotty’s ribbon. You can see the color it once was (or was similar to) on the knot of his bow. Interestingly, the ribbon has essentially no fraying. It occurred to me perhaps to give him a new ribbon, but I decided that keeping everything as original as possible, since I believe most collectors would want that too.

One nice thing about Zotty is the fullness of his mohair; that definitely contributes to the “plus.” I do want to note a really minor booboo on the right side of his shaved mohair muzzle. I am pointing to it with an arrow in my fourth (composite) image. It is hard to describe, since there is not ONE blemish, but several. But those several are all in one tiny area. I tried taking closeup pictures to show you, but none of my many attempts provided anything that would be helpful to clarify what I would describe as a puncture wound. I think you can see how tiny this area is; it takes up approximately a square centimeter.

I want to say a few words about Zotty’s IDs. His chest tag was pretty much in tatters, with the each of the three layers separated and so badly creased that I was afraid to touch them! I gingerly glued the three layers together, but the tag was so worn that even combining the three once again did very little to give the tag any kind of substance to feel. I added a layer of additional cardboard as a reinforcement, which, most definitely helped, but the tag is really almost disintegrated. On top of everything else, the string has pulled about halfway into the periphery of the tag, so this will still be something you should take care to handle gently. With all that said, at least, when you look at Zotty displayed sweetly in your vitrine, you will see that he has all his ID. And I believe (as you probably will too) the tag, even in its current condition, is better than no tag. If you don’t, then snip it off! 🙂

Zotty’s flag was also not ideal, but compared to his chest tag, his flag was mint! The problem with the flag was, in large part, factory caused. You can see that the button is at the end of the flag and does not even hold the flag on with the two prongs! It is not only at the end but at the corner of the flag. This might have been OK when Zotty was new, but in the 60 or more years since he left the factory, he was probably handled and played with. There is some minor fraying along the sides of the flag, although not enough to prevent you from reading the complete number. But the flag is also somewhat worn around the button, and although it still looks pretty good, I thought it was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Therefore, I put several tiny yellow stitches through the tag attaching it directly to his ear. The stitches are not invisible in my closeup image of the flag, but they should be essentially invisible when you admire him on display.

Speaking of admiring Zotty on display, I come to what is almost always my final comment when describing a Steiff animal. That is something absolutely irrelevant to your enjoying him visually. Of course, I am referring to his (now-silent) squeaker. You, or anyone else, passing by Zotty’s vitrine and admiring him, would not know whether he roared or not.

You DECEMBER have read (or will now read) Zotty’s brothers’ descriptions, but I will give you this information here too. Zotty’s name derives from the German word “zottig,” which means “shaggy,” and the first number, “6,” of his article number indicates that he is a young animal, and, as always, Steiff has successfully conveyed that baby look.

I can’t think of anything else to tell you, but please write if you have a question. You will be absolutely delighted if Zotty comes to live with you, or if you have a lucky collector in mind for receiving Zotty as a gift, they will be delighted as well. And now you (or they) can have all three!

WHATEVER YOU DECIDE TO DO ABOUT ZOTTY OR ANY OF MY OTHER STEIFF ITEMS, PLEASE BE SURE TO SEE THE ARTICLE I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT STEIFF ID FRAUD—INCLUDING COUNTERFEIT CHEST TAGS—(AND OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR COLLECTORS). YOU WILL FIND THE LINK ON THE BOTTOM RIGHT OF MY SHOP HOME PAGE UNDER “FAVORITE LINKS.” IF YOU HAVE NOT LOOKED AT IT RECENTLY, I UPDATED AND EXPANDED IT IN DECEMBER, 2022.