Sweet Large Deep Gold Steiff 5xJointed Original Teddy Bear All ID

OH BOY! OH BOY! OH BOY! Isn’t this guy gorgeous?! This is the next-to-largest Steiff Original Teddy (OT) I have ever helped find a new home; the largest was a 65 cm caramel bear. This wonderful boy is 43 cm tall. Before him, the largest gold OT whose relocation I handled, was 40 cm, and that adoption took place way back in 2009, even before I came to Ruby Lane. In between, I have had the pleasure of helping other gold OTs get adopted (there are two in my shop now), but this Teddy is the largest one I’ve had, and he is only four sizes down from the top (75 cm).

You can see how large Teddy is in my last picture. Even with my wide-angle lens (and my short arm) I could barely get my hand in the picture, which I wanted to include to give you a point of reference.

Teddy’s size is clearly denoted on his complete flag in his darkly-printed article number, 5343,01. There were two series of OT with this article number. One was made between 1959—and 1964, and the other was made in 1965 and 1966. I have two reasons to believe Teddy is from the earlier series: He has glass eyes, and his raised script button is the earlier kind, with skinny letters.

Teddy’s size is to be measured to the top of his head, and he is not far from the catalogue. He is a bit under 42 cm tall, about 16 1/4 inches. Speaking of Teddy’s height, he is standing unaided in all my images, but it was a fight with every pose! If you want to display him upright, you should really have a stand. I think the part of Teddy you will most want to look at is that wonderful face, and therefore, you may be content with displaying him seated. With good posture, Teddy measures about 12 1/’2 inches tall to the top of his head. Remember to leave a bit more room for his ears. 🙂

Since I have mentioned Teddy’s button and flag, I should get discussion of the not-so-great condition of his chest tag out of the way. Actually, the tag looks MUCH better than it did when Teddy arrived. It was held together, rather sloppily, by criss-crossed lengths of cellophane tape on both sides. My original plan was to remove the tape and then hold everything together by a piece of cardboard covering the back, as you may have seen on other chest tags I’ve rescued. 😉 That plan was only partly successful, and despite my trying VERRRRRY GENTLY to lift the tape, I ended up removing parts of the surface layer of the tag. I decided to stop where I did on the front, but I was able to reinforce the tag from the back with my usual technique. When you look closely at the tag, it still looks damaged, but I think my repairs did have a positive effect on the tag’s appearance, and viewed from a display distance, it looks pretty good.

Oh yes, another thing I associate with early production is chest tags that have a double loop attachment, and, since you will be looking at his tag, you can see the two loops.

Back to Teddy, himself. I would characterize his condition as at least very good plus (or excellent minus) :-). Aside from his incredibly sweet expression, made so by the “just right” placement of his eyes (and, of course their being made of glass), Teddy’s gold color is fantastic! I tried to make the color as consistent as I could from image to image, and I think I did a good job. You can not only see the color of his mohair but its wonderful luster as well. In addition to making the images consistent with each other, It was tricky to make the individual parts of Teddy internally consistent; lighting all of him well in his different poses was another challenge. I am satisfied with the results as I see them, and I hope you see on your monitor what I see on mine.

Teddy has a touch of all-over wear in his mohair, but I do mean just a “touch.” He also has some wear along some of his seams, but I am not certain that what you see Is much different from the way he looked perhaps over 60 years ago when he left Giengen. Teddy does have one more serious area of wear; I am referring to the tip of his muzzle. Although the mohair around his lustrous black floss nose and mouth is worn, the black stitching looks like new.

Although I tried to get good pictures of Teddy’s wool felt foot and paw pads, the minor thing I want to show you on them just didn’t come across. His felt is somewhat worn. I DON”T mean that it is in any danger of tearing! You know that it is worn because you can see a hint of his excelsior stuffing under the thinner felt, which would have been opaque when Teddy was new. In addition, the color of the felt is no longer the ‘ripe cantaloupe” color you see on pristine pads. His paw pads are slightly closer in color to what they looked like when new than the pads on his feet. But even they, as you should be able to see in my pictures, are at least somewhere in the “orange” hue family and not tan or beige.

Speaking of color, I am almost certain that Teddy’s bow color is original and not faded. The ribbon is the same color on both sides, and that color is uniform. I don’t think I have seen another bear with precisely this color ribbon—a very light green—but I have nothing but praise for its condition; the fraying is minor, and Teddy’s bow is still tacked to his chest.

The last paragraph of my descriptions is usually devoted to the “voices” of animals who have them. Teddy is an interesting case. His tilt growler is not absolutely silent, but the short spurt of sound you hear when you tilt him back is more like what I imagine a sick cow would make. 🙂 The growler box, itself, is noisy. When you tip Teddy back (and he moos briefly) you hear his growler “clunk” when you tip him forward again. Since you will almost certainly be enjoying Teddy from a distance in your display case or vitrine, you would not know what kind of sound he did or did not make. I am adding this tidbit of information for your amusement.

I think I have covered everything, but don’t hesitate to write if you have a question. You don’t see a Steiff bear like this very often, and whether you are the collector or there is an arctophile significant in your life whom you would like to surprise with a special gift, please consider him.

WHATEVER YOU DECIDE TO DO ABOUT TEDDY 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.