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Posts: 3Hi fellow bear lovers. Occasional lurker here. Hobbyist bear builder and sometimes bear doctor.
A friend brought this to me a few days ago. Hours of research later and I am still completely stumped.
This bear measures about 9 inches tall. It very much resembles Mama Berenstain bear but I can't find any reference to them making anything that looked like this. The head is sewn onto the body. The dress is stitched to the body. The body is center stitched. Eyes and nose are glass. The body is hard and crunchy. A small hole in the fabric of the hand reveals what looks like woodwool. The stitching is tight and machine done. There are twelve different fabrics used. The face, ears, shoes, and foot pads are felt. There are no tags.
Sacred Bear StudiosI've mostly given up bear ID posts, but I'll offer some opinions on her simply because she's an unusual animal and I'm intrigued.....
Firstly, She looks like she's probably meant to be a hedgehog rather than a bear, since she bears a passing but unmistakable resemblance to the old Steiff hedgehogs (though I suspect this girl is American made) even her costume is Mecki- like. I can't offer a positive ID because she's an example I've never seen, however I can comfortably offer a rough period of manufacture-
since her head fur looks like it is Dralon (which was widely used between world war two and the late 60's) but her stuffing is still wood wool which was all but completely out of use in favor of either cotton, celluloid or foam stuffing by the mid 50's) she would have probably been made between 1940 and 1955. Could be made by Gund, Ideal, or Knickerbocker.
It's actually odd to see the combination of synthetic fur and wood wool stuffing, I don't run across that very much.
Hope that helps a bit, she's in a remarkable state of preservation for a felt-faced animal....please keep us updated if you find out anything more.
Steiff did a Mecki and Micki doll similar to yours, but I didn't see any exactly like yours. If it is a steiff it would likely have a hole in one of the ears where the button used to be.
Posts: 3Thank you very much for your help BlackmoonBear and Jenbee. Most definitely a hedgehog and definitely unusual. The later date is a good match for a Micki copy. I'll follow up on the suggestions. Going to keep her in hopes of one day finding her mate. Thank You.
