Rare Gorgeous Coloring Steiff Piccy Pelican Bird All ID

I am sure you have heard the expression, used metaphorically about a person, that he is a “rare bird.” Piccy the pelican is LITERALLY a rare bird—among Steiff birds—because he was only made for three years, 1959 to 1961. Those dates apply both to this Piccy and to his larger brother. Each size had only one article number, and you can see Piccy’s number, 1317,00 clearly in the inset in my third image. Substitute a “25” for the “17,” and you have his big brother’s number.

I have lots of cool birds in my shop, but Piccy is most definitely the coolest and certainly the most unusual. And, I would venture to say—because of his rarity—he is one of the most sought-after birds among Steiff ornithophiles. And in the well-over two decades I have been doing this, I have not, on many occasions, been able to satisfy those ornithophiles with many Piccys, period, and far fewer (if any) as wonderful as this guy.

Piccy’s desirability is enhanced by the fact that he has all three of his IDS, and his condition is somewhere between excellent-plus and near mint. I am hedging a bit since there is a very slight amount of wear along some of Piccy’s seams—which may actually be the way he looked when he left the factory. In any case, if his seams became more apparent AFTER he flew away from Giengen, that diminution is inconsequential, and just some of my typical nitpicking.

On that same level of fault-finding is the fact that Piccy’s flag has torn away from a small section of the circumference of his button. I can see how that happened, since his tail hides the very top of his flag, and you have to bend it forward to read the word “Original,” printed over the name “Steiff,” which you can just barely see. Assuming Piccy will be going to the home of an adult collector, who will display him away from the curious prodding and poking fingers of a child, his flag will be just fine. Sometimes the flags and buttons on my Steiff adoptees have so badly separated that I felt the need to add a few stitches to secure the flag to its ear (or tail ;-)), but that is definitely not the situation here.

Everything else about Piccy is fantastic! His airbrushing—on both his mohair and felt—is gorgeous, and his black and white hand-blown glass googly eyes are both looking (almost) in the same direction. I am glad about that because the last time I tried to adjust an eye like one of these on another rare Steiff animal, it came off in my hand! I slapped my perfectionist wrist out of the way. 😉

I just want to add a word about Piccy’s chest tag. It is in near-mint condition, but the attachment string is short, which pulls it to one side.

One final thing I want to share is about the plastic surrounding Piccy’s felt bill. It is there to give structure to the felt. Steiff made good use of this plastic by giving Piccy a full set of teeth, which is certainly inventive, but not accurate in nature. Pelicans do not have teeth! 🙂

I can’t think of anything else to tell you, but please write if you have a question. This is one of the rare occasions I have NOT kept an animal I originally bought for resale and decided to sell my vitrine-living relative instead. My vitrine Piccy is nice enough to keep, and I will let one of you have the pleasure of calling this one your own. If I were dealing with a cat, I might not have been so generous. 😉

WHATEVER YOU DECIDE TO DO ABOUT PICCY 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 MARCH, 2023.