Jumbo Stuffed Animals And Teddy Bear Companies

With jumbo stuffed animals, like with all other soft toys

, there is a wide range from which to choose. Some of the more popular ones are teddy bears; it seems no matter their size, teddy bears come out on top every time. For those that prefer a choice [of size] in their bears, there is the option of going with something that will fit in the palm of your hand, right on up to jumbo stuffed animal size.

Besides the Steiff company, which was responsible for the creation of the first teddy bear (in 1902), there were other companies with which Steiff had competition. Their principal competitor in Europe during the early years of teddy bear manufacturing was Berder Bing. It was founded in Nuremberg in 1863 by Ignaz and Adolphe Bing. The company initially started out as a wholesaler of kitchenware and tinware but in 1881, it turned to toymaking, setting up the Bing Brothers' Nuremberg Toy Factory in Ksrolinestrasse, Germany. By the early 1900s, Bing was the largest toy company in the world with some 3,000 employees and showrooms in London, Paris, Milan, Hamburg, Berlin, and Amsterdam.

In 1907, Bing, decided to try its hand at teddy bears. The first ones they produced looked eerily similar to those made by Steiff; the colors chosen for the bears were similar, felt pads were used on the feet and paws, the mohair was similar in density and design, the back was humped, the arms were longer than the legs and they had almost identical boot-button eyes set in similar shaped face. These bears even had a metal button as an identification mark (the same as the Steiff bears), even though it was in the right ear and not the left.

Sixty miles north of Nuremberg, was another German toymaking center but it specialized in soft toys. There were dozens, if not hundreds of small toy firms that mass produced cheap products. One company whose toys were far superior to others was Educa. It was founded in 1858 by Eduard Cramer. He was the son of a tailor and it was intended that he would take over his father's [tailoring] business. With no need for Eduard's father to hire him, his father-in-law, who was a toy manufacturer in the same village, encouraged him to design patterns for soft toys. While his first design (like Margarete Steiff) was an elephant, he went on to concentrate on designing well-constructed teddy bears for the export market. In 1906-1907, his efforts were rewarded when he received an order for 6,000 bears from a wholesaler in Sonneberg.

Educa bears were made in 9 standard sizes and they had unique heart-shaped muzzles. Some of them even had red embroidered mouths making them easy to identify. The company produced many novelty teddy bear designs including dancing and prancing bears, brightly colored bears and clown bears that played music when their head were tilted back and forth.

While we may have once thought jumbo stuffed animals were unique, when looking back through the history of toy makers and the different types of teddy bears that were produced some 100 years ago, they aren't so unusual after all. With teddy's that played music and danced, toymakers were well ahead of their time, so it's only logical that jumbo stuffed animals would make their way into the market eventually and, aren't we lucky they did?

by: Angeline Hope

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