Steiff Summer

Steiff Summer 2016

Check out my Steiff Workshop movie where I made my very own Limited Edition Steiff Bear on the Steiff Workshop at the Steiff Summer in Germany. 

Teddy Babs treated me for my 60th and we had such a lovely time.  I now appreciate the work and skill that goes into the art of bear making.

Our Visit To Steiff Summer 2013
 
He may have an eye missing, a limp arm and bald patches on his fur but the Teddy has always been loved and looking back to our childhood days I don’t know of anything else that has had so much love and affection so every time I see a child holding him by one arm the memories come flooding back and it was this that made us decide on opening Teddy Station.

We had been business people for many years but that old cliché ‘Job Satisfaction’ wasn’t quite there and now we were relighting a passionate fire, something we could really enjoy doing, some of us just don’t grow up!

After a while with Teddy Station ticking over we wanted to try and give the adults some interest and being collectors of collectable bears ourselves we displayed a few bears from the famous Steiff collection, the oldest and in fact the first to create the Teddy bear and we had no idea how this interest would grow. Quite often now we get Nanny and Granddad visiting Teddy Station with their grand children and more often than not their attention is drawn towards our wonderful Steiff collection, so off they go, the children with their very own new teddies and the grandparents taking a new Steiff friend home.

As time has moved on we have added to our range of bears including Merrythought, Teddy Hermann, Clemens, Charlie Bears to name a few and moving with the times we have created a Facebook page which has widened our connections with new friends and to our surprise one dear lady who has communicated several times, namely Claire Steiff, granddaughter of Richard Steiff who designed the first Teddy Bear that was taken to America.

Our Facebook connections have been truly rewarding and Claire became personally interested in Teddy Station sending us pictures of her mother Marianne Steiff Meisel with her memories bear and a wonderful script which we have displayed in our shop.

I think that the growth of a business is often linked to the effort that you put in and for our efforts we are now the largest stockist of the Steiff collection in Essex, plus holding Club Shop status which entitles us to promote the new spring and autumn collections at selected events twice a year.

As Claire Steiff is domiciled in America, which is where her grandfather settled, we didn’t think that we would ever meet her but our fortunes changed this year when we visited the Steiff Summer Teddy Bear festival held over three days at the Steiff factory where there is a museum, a shop and there are also several marquees with various hand crafts, food and drinks plus a stage for the entertainment.

Visitors from many parts of the globe attend the Steiff Summer Teddy Bear festival at Giengen Germany, not only buyers but Bear enthusiasts and collectors of antique and new Steiff Bears, not forgetting that this is the birth place of Margarete Steiff.

We had the pleasure of spending considerable time with Claire at the festival and the dear lady exudes friendship something that is traditional with all members of the family and is reflected in the friendly attitude of the staff, which in this day and age is very refreshing.

Steve Claire and Babs.