Historic teddy bear sells for more than £4,000 at Shropshire auction
A teddy bear that has travelled all the way from a famous German toy firm has been sold for thousands of pounds at a north Shropshire auctioneers.
Trevanion and Dean's final auction of the year saw toys take the top spot, just in time for Christmas, with a Steiff teddy bear that dates back to 1904 selling for £4,200.
Saturday's auction also saw selling success for a hand-built model of 10 Downing Street which sold for £660 and a Georgian mansion model, which stood at more than 6ft tall, and sold for £440.
Christina Trevanion, auctioneer at the Whitchurch firm, said: "Steiff is a German toy firm who have been producing bears since 1902, and are thought of by many as the inventors of the teddy bear.
"Drawing inspiration from US President Theodore Roosevelt, known colloquially as ‘Teddy’, the teddy bear originates from a story of a hunting trip Roosevelt participated in in Mississippi, 1902.
"While hunting, Roosevelt declared the behaviour of the other hunters unsportsmanlike and he refused to kill a bear they had beaten and captured, but instead demanded it be shot quickly to be put out its misery.
"The incident was topic of many satirical cartoons at the time and inspired the designer Richard Steiff to create a friendly stuffed bear for children. The teddy bear was an instant success among women and children, and Roosevelt even adopted one as his mascot when he re-ran for office."
The model, which is more than a century old, is among some of the earliest examples of a teddy bear in the world.
Specialists at Trevanion and Dean described the distinctive features of the bear, including its iron-rod joints, used in early bears to create moving joints before disk-jointing was perfected for limbs.
They said it is one of the most sought-after examples by avid toy collectors, leading to highly competitive bidding from buyers online. It eventually sold to a buyer in the South of England for their private collection.
