Amazing Limited Edition Teddy Bears For You

There is a plethora of limited edition teddy bears to enjoy if you travel to some of the many dedicated teddy bear fairs that are regularly held around the UK. Who recalls seeing the film Brideshead Revisited and remembers Aloysius, the teddy bear? Well, this particular teddy bear was loaned to the film-makers by Peter Bull, a British character actor who died in 1984.

Peter Bull was a particularly well-known collector of teddy bears, often touring the USA with his collection of teddy bears. Meanwhile, the first teddy bear auction was held in 1982 by Sotheby's of London. Another auction in London, this time by Christie, saw a teddy bear fetch 110,000 pounds. This was bought by a Japanese collector who took his prize bear back with him to Japan, booked into its very own first class plane seat!

What is a Limited Edition Teddy Bear?

Limited edition teddy bears are collectors' items that tend to increase in value due to only a limited number being manufactured. 'Limited edition' is often used interchangeably with 'collectors' edition', 'deluxe edition' or 'special edition' and refers to the numbers produced, very often limited to a single teddy bear. In the case of the 100th anniversary occurring during 2002, limited editions in that year numbered 100 in honour of the event according to information from the British Teddy Bear Association.

Spare the Bear

The naming of the teddy bear occurred as a result of an ill-fated hunting trip by President Teddy Roosevelt in 1902 when he failed abysmally to hit a single bear during the bear hunting season in Mississippi. In an attempt to make an easier target for the President, his friends tethered a live bear to a post nearby. The President, on seeing the tethered animal refused to shoot it, being heard to remark:

"Spare the bear! I will not shoot a tethered animal".

Naturally, this resulted in a spate of cartoons, the first of which was published in the Washington Post, drawn by Clifford Berryman. Toymakers Morris and Rose Michtom made a soft plush bear as a toy and advertised it in their shop window beside Berryman's cartoon, with a note that stated 'Teddy's Bear'. This was the beginning of the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company's overnight success as the USA's interest in these plush 'teddy's bears' was phenomenal, even going so far as to be adopted as a political mascot for President Roosevelt.

In a simultaneous move that was incredibly timely, Margarete Steiff began making plush bears in Geingen, Germany, selling 3,000 Steiff bears to the US public in 1903. The Steiff bear was made with an integrated logo button inserted in its left ear, a tradition that continues today. Millions of Steiff bears were sold between 1903 and the outbreak of the First World War, not just in the USA but in the UK and in Germany as well. The design of the Steiff bear has changed little since then.

Over the years since then the popularity of the teddy bear, as it was now called, has waxed and waned, with many other manufacturers making limited edition teddies. Teddy bear collectors throughout the world are innumerable, and the limited edition ones often change hands for enormous sums of money.