Random Thoughts and Miscellany on Steiff Markings, Part Three

Random Thoughts and Miscellany on Steiff Markings, Part Three

 

This month’s Blog is about some little known editions of the Steiff Tag-In-Ear and Button-In-Ear.

 

Immediately following are for internal (to Steiff) use only. They are not for sale. As I understand the situation, sometimes a Steiff employee has an example of a HANDMUSTER or WERKMUSTER piece. These pieces can be extremely valuable.

 

 

 

Not for Sale/Unverkaufliches

HANDMUSTER

Property of/Eigentum der

Margarete Steiff GmbH

 

Above comes in yellow or white tag, and is the first approved model of the piece. These are Steiff Tags for approved designer models

 

 

Not for Sale/Unverkaufliches

WERKMUSTER

Property of/Eigentum der

Margarete Steiff GmbH

 

Above comes in yellow or white tag. These are tags for type samples in the production department.

 

 

Above is found on Pp. 84-86 in “100 Years Steiff Teddy Bears – The Original Since 1902”.

 

By Gunther Pfeiffer

2001

 

 

Blanc Button and Overproduction Pieces

 

Usually the Steiff items have a button and eartag in the ear (or sometimes at other sites), and the button in our day has the name "Steiff" on it. "Blanc button" items are articles which are originally only sold at the Steiff factory store in Giengen / Germany and are normally rejects. They have no eartag and the button is blanc, so no "Steiff" on it. Most times you cannot see any reason why they are rejects (well sometimes they even look better than the "normal" item for resale), but they are less expensive. Here in the United States they are frequently called “Factory Seconds”.

 

Above all for children to play they are very good as the children very often will cut the ear tag anyway...

 

Beside the "Blanc Button" items there are also so called "Overproduction" items which are also originally sold only at the factory store. When Steiff is producing a limited edition with for example 1500 pieces, they will produce for example 1530 pieces because of perhaps some rejects or other issues. But only these 1500 pieces will get their consecutively numbered white (=limited) ear tag. The ones more than 1500 will get a yellow ear tag which tells you on the back side that this is an item from "Overproduction", so not a reject but it is not one from the limited issued amount.

 

Both, blanc buttons and overproduction items, will miss most times any accessories like dresses or other things which are not fixed to the item.

You will find examples of both at http://www.bearattack.com under "Steiff - Available in Stock" separate categories for Blanc Button items and Overproduction items.

 

http://www.bearattack.com/ba-steiff-blankbutton.html

 

http://www.bearattack.com/ba-steiff-overprod.html

 

 

 

 

Harald Mallwitz

General Manager

hmallwitz at tx dot rr dot com

Coppell Collectibles, L.L.C.

Coppell, TX

Consultants to the Teddy bear world

Teddy bear does not come to life until he is loved, but once loved he will live forever

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