By Ines Keane
Ask when Steiff began and the sources give you three answers. All three are defensible. That is a good place to start, because it shows how a company story gets built.
Three dates
Steiff’s own history page says Margarete Steiff was born on 24 July 1847 in Giengen an der Brenz and contracted polio at eighteen months. In 1877 it says she founded a felt clothing shop. It gives 1880 as the official founding date of the manufactory, the year she sewed a felt elephant pincushion from a pattern in a fashion journal. And it says the company was entered in the commercial register on 3 March 1893 as “Margarete Steiff, Filzspielwarenfabrik Giengen/Brenz”, employing four sewers and ten home workers.
Wikipedia gives 1880 for the founding and 1893 for the felt factory. It adds that she was a seamstress and that the elephants were sold in her shop as pincushions, and gives no separate date for the elephants.
The company page is the company’s own, so its claims are self-reported. We label them that way throughout.
The bear
The company page says Margarete’s nephew Richard Steiff joined in 1897 and that his animal sketches shaped many Steiff designs. In 1902, it says, he designed the “Bear 55 PB”, described as the world’s first plush bear with movable arms and legs, and an American dealer ordered 3,000 of them. Wikipedia gives the same design name and the same number but places the American order in 1903. It says a cartoon of President Theodore Roosevelt and a bear cub in The Washington Post in 1902 sparked the teddy bear craze. The company page puts the nickname and the “Teddy boom” in 1906.
So the order is 1902 or 1903, and the craze is 1902 or 1906, depending on whom you read. We keep both.
The button
Both sources date the metal “button in ear” to 1904 and credit another nephew, Franz Steiff. Wikipedia says it was devised to guard against counterfeits. The company page says the button first showed an elephant, later replaced by the “Steiff” lettering.
Numbers
The company page says that in 1907 Steiff produced 1,700,000 toys and 973,999 teddy bears, with 400 employees and 1,800 home workers. Wikipedia says 974,000 bears. These are the same figure, rounded. The company page adds that 1895 brought the first foreign business relationship, with Harrods in London.
Wikipedia gives a dated oddity for 1912: only 494 black bears were made, in five sizes, after the Titanic disaster, and production was halted soon after. The link to the Titanic is Wikipedia’s wording and we cannot confirm it.
Dates in order
- 1847: Margarete Steiff is born (company).
- 1877: felt clothing shop (company).
- 1880: official founding; the felt elephant (company; Wikipedia agrees on 1880).
- 1893: commercial register entry (company; Wikipedia agrees).
- 1895: first foreign relationship, Harrods (both).
- 1897: Richard Steiff joins (both).
- 1902: Bear 55 PB designed (both).
- 1902 or 1903: the 3,000-piece American order.
- 1904: button in ear (both).
- 1907: nearly a million bears (both).
- 9 May 1909: Margarete Steiff dies at 61 of pneumonia (company; Wikipedia agrees on 1909 and pneumonia).
- 1925: assembly-line production (both).
- 1931: first figures with Disney (both).
- 1980: the Steiff Museum opens in Giengen (both).
- 2005: new museum of 2,400 square metres (company).
The company across the century
The company page lists later milestones. In 1931 the first figures were made together with Disney. In 1951 it produced the comic figure Mecki under licence. In 1980, the 100th anniversary on its own count, the Steiff Museum opened in Giengen. On 1 April 1992 the Steiff Club was launched and Steiff North America Inc. was founded. In 2005 a new museum of 2,400 square metres opened for the 125th anniversary. It records a Disney Heritage Award in 2018, Margarete Steiff’s induction into the toy industry’s Hall of Fame in 2020, and the Steiff Teddy turning 120 in 2022.
Wikipedia, citing Time, says the company had 2,100 employees in 1968. It does not say how many there are now, and we leave the question open.
Why the button matters
Wikipedia says the button was devised to guard against counterfeits. Our reading is that a mark meant to guard against counterfeits is a provenance device, which is why its date matters. The sources do not say how well it worked, and we have no way to date a button from a photograph.
Two ways to tell the story
The company page mentions a hunting-trip episode in 1906 and does not mention the cartoon. Wikipedia mentions the 1902 cartoon and does not mention the hunting trip. Our reading is that both may be part of one story, but neither source says so, and neither claims to be the full account.
Materials and hands
Wikipedia says Steiff uses natural fibres such as mohair, that a large share of the work is done by hand, and that training to become a seamstress takes eight to twelve months. It does not say which items are made where, and we do not either.
What kind of sources these are
One is the company’s own history page. The other is Wikipedia, open to editing and carrying its own cautions. Neither is an archive. A German commercial register entry or a museum catalogue would settle the date questions.
What the sources do not say
They do not tell us how the 1902 and 1903 dates relate, which pieces are made in Giengen now, or how to date an unlabelled bear. Wikipedia mentions record auction results, and we deliberately leave prices out.
What we left out
All prices and auction results, licensing deals, and a Wikipedia line about a recent change of ownership that we could not verify from a second source.
Roam first. Shop later.