What's black and white but pink chimpanzee teddy bear throughout? Collectors simply can’t get enough of these uncommon bears. ; On this case, it's when a vintage Steiff panda is listed on Ruby Lane! Steiff is best recognized for its Teddy bears, so it isn't any surprise that their basic panda bears are designed and produced with the same understanding and respect for design, attraction, high quality, and scale as these of their traditional Teds. Let’s take a look at Steiff’s pandas from the 1930’s by means of the early 1970’s - Steiff’s “panda prime time” - and see what makes these black and white beauties so beary special from the collector’s perspective.
Pandas appeared "in the flesh" in a number of major zoos across the globe within the late 1930's. They instantly rocketed to worldwide superstar standing. Piggybacking on the success of their real-life cousins, pandas made their debut within the Steiff line in 1938; by 1939, they had been being produced in 15 and 30 cm on a commercial scale through 1942 overall. Their faces were detailed with brown and black pupil eyes, a black hand embroidered nose, and an open, peach colored felt mouth. This especially valuable design was five methods jointed and made from black and white mohair. The black circles around their eyes had been created by hand airbrushing. Due to wartime material shortages, some fashions have been produced with linen or other alternative fabrics within the place of felt on their hand and foot paw pads.
The success of its first early panda inspired Steiff to supply more pandas in the road as soon as the factory reopened for business within the late 1940s. As they did with a core group of confirmed and widespread products, Steiff produced the equivalent fashions that had been in the line pre-battle, just to get products they knew would sell into the market as quickly as attainable. In the case of the panda, Steiff started making the prewar design once more, but only in 30 cm through 1950. These early postwar manufacturing pandas often had inferior quality greyish-black felt on their pads as prime quality felt supplies had been still solely accessible in very restricted portions at that time.