Steiff happens....

.... when you least expect it.

I have a new bear in my collection.... you just cannot have an old Victorian house without a few resident teddy bears. (It's in the Victorian Rule Book... page 23.)  Over the years, I've bought or rescued vintage looking bears...... the smallest one wears a red Christmas dress and she's one of my favorites because she was a gift.  The largest one was given to us from one of our friends here last Christmas.... that bear was added to the teddy bear parade that sits on our staircase.... one bear sitting on each step (a Christmas decorating hint happily borrowed from Mary Engelbreit).

The bears get packed away with the Christmas decorations, except for a precious few that sit quietly in Victorian chairs and just make you smile when you look at them.  The bear I found yesterday, however.... bought at first glance for my space in the antique shop..... but then when I got it home, I just couldn't bring myself to put a price tag on him.

This particular bear....... found in a local thrift store..... sitting there in a glass showcase and looking very lonely. I saw him from across the room and my first thought was "It couldn't be...."     When I got up closer to the showcase, it indeed was..... a Steiff bear..... made in Austria, complete with its original price tag and label (printed in German).  The little Stieff button in the bear's ear gives its number, and when I looked up that number on the Internet, the prices for this little bear went everywhere from $59 to $289, depending on condition.  When my husband and I went to Germany years ago, I was tempted to buy a Steiff bear, but the prices (in Euros) were over-the-top.

My little Steiff bear from the thrift store is in excellent, pristine condition..... and it's a 'growler,' which means that it makes a bear-like sound when you turn him over.  Well, not exactly a bear-sound, but more like a bear-cub sound.  I'm guessing that someone went traveling, brought this bear back as a gift for a child, and the child's mother (or the child) wasn't thrilled about the non-fluffy-ness of this little bear (Steiff bears tend to be stiff, not soft).... and into the donation box it went, along with possibly half a dozen other worn-to-a-frazzle stuffed animals that had been much loved over the years.

I paid just a few dollars for this bear.......... and my guess is that if this Steiff bear didn't have its original tag on him, he would have been tossed into the store's play-pen that's always filled with stuffed animals that cost fifty cents each.  (Surely an embarrassment for a Steiff bear.)

No question in my mind.... I'm not selling this bear, no matter what my profit margin would be.  However, there is that little rule of mine: "One thing in, one thing out."  I could not possibly part with any of the bears that I've collected over the years.... less than 20 of them, but they're all special in their own way, and they do love making an appearance at Christmas time.

The Steiff bear is sitting on my desk at the moment.  I can see him as I'm typing this, and he looks perfectly content to be right where he is. One thing in.... one thing out.

Okay, okay..... let me think....

I have a candle-glass in the green bathroom..... decorated with lace and pearls.... perfectly cute, very Victorian-looking, but I don't use it.... when you're out in the middle of these hills, you don't tend to put a match to candles.  Into the donation box goes that candle-glass.

One thing in, one thing out.  The bear stays.