Help ID This Growling Teddy

by Karissa E
(Rehoboth MA)

Hello all,

I am hoping someone can help me pinpoint a maker for this lovely antique bear. I passed him in the antique store and simply could not pass him up. Needless to say, he came home with me and the collection grows. He is charming; however, he has no tags or buttons from which to identify a maker. Please let me know if he has any distinct features that could be attributed to a specific maker. (what feature and who would be the maker)

This is a large teddy, measuring twenty two (22) inches long from head to toe (ears not included) He has shaggy, golden/ blonde mohair fur. His snout is long and shaven. His nose is stitched and the thread runs vertically on his snout. Also, he has sort of a wider smile. The bear has a small hole on one of his foot paw pads where I was able to see that he is stuffed with wood wool (or excelsior). His paw pads are a light pink felt material. Like a lot of early bears, this big guy has black boot button eyes. His ears are set further apart on his head. Again, there are no tags or noticeable marks from ear buttons. His arms are long and he has curved paws. His legs, on the other hand, are not as lengthy. He is fully jointed, though his arms don’t move as well as they could. His paws are stitched with a 5 claw pattern (on both hands and feet). He has a seam running up his back side. On his back, he has a somewhat large and fairly pronounced hump. This teddy bear also has a functioning growler.

I was thinking that he may be an earlier Steiff. He resembles a smaller Steiff bear that I own but I do not know enough about these things. Someone I spoke with mentioned early Bing, but I thought Bing had only colored glass eyes and (as I mentioned before) this handsome guy has black boot button eyes.

THANK YOU ALL for your taking your time to read this and maybe even for responding. I look forward to seeing your ideas.

-Karissa

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