Early horse toys - Steiff

-
Whilst rummaging around in the Gammages' Christmas catalogue for 1913, I came across these splendid creatures:



Gammages generally went more for the value than the prestige end of the market, but on his travels to find new stock, Arthur Gammage soon realised the magnetic attraction the Steiff output had for children (and their parents), and the 1913 catalogue contains 4 pages of them.  "We have again secured the largest possible variety of STEIFF'S TOYS, anticipating a greater demand than ever," said the catalogue.

If you bought a creature over 17 inches tall, it came with an automatic "animal" voice.   I heard one on the Antiques Roadshow a while back, though I think the animal was a bear rather than a horse.  The voice sounded more like a strangulated mouse squeak than a bear, but then when I am nearly 100 years old I don't suppose I shall sound particularly robust either.  Both these toys, I think, are glorious, and are considerably better than Butterscotch the robot pony, which is plain spooky, an opinion obviously shared by at least some of the police force in Florida.


Comments

Christina Wilsdon said…
Yep, Butterscotch--she is really da bomb.

A friend recently got me a Butterscotch pony as a gift just for fun since I've always wanted a horse--but right now she (the pony, not my friend) has her back covered with clothing that needs folding, so I guess you might say she is little more than a clotheshorse at this point!
29 January 2011 at 04:09
Jane Badger said…
Oooh - you have a Butterscotch! A clotheshorse Butterscotch, at that. Jealous.
29 January 2011 at 12:05
Goldielover said…
I have an old stuffed horse who goes back to about 1922. He was given new to my aunt when she was very small. He's pretty battered up now, with not too much left in the way of main and tail. He originally had a saddle and bridle, but the only part left of those are the stirrups. The rest of the saddle was still around when I was a kid, but it fell apart and got thrown out. I cut a new saddle out of blue cloth for him when I was about seven, and it still exists, along with the string bridle I made him. He's a little too fragile for a child to play with these days, though. He stands about twelve inches tall.
29 January 2011 at 13:08
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rollkur and the blue tongue

-
I've been meaning to write about this all week, but reading the exclusive in Horse and Hound about the controversy tipped me over the edge. For my non-horsy readers, rollkur is a training/warming up technique used by some dressage riders. It basically involves riding the horse with its jaw pulled in virtually to its chest, in order to increase suppleness. Patrik Kittel , a Swedish competitor in Odense was videoed riding his horse in this way. If you watch the video , you'll see the horse's tongue hanging out - blue. It takes a while before the rider notices this. When he does, he stops, puts the horse's tongue back in, and carries on. There are two things which bother me about this. Firstly, I am fully aware large sections of the dressage world, and some of its brighest stars, consider rollkur perfectly ok, but the FEI guidelines state this practice should only be for short periods, allowing the horse to rest. Patrick Kittel apparently rode the horse for two hou
Read more

Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes

-
Image
My friend Louise sent me this picture today. It's from a children's book with the rather wince-making title For The Wee Ones. I thought, when I read that (because I read the message before I looked at the picture) that the picture was going to be a typical winsome production from the school of artists who think (or who are paid to think) that the child is a thing sent from God and a blissful thing. They had obviously never met a child, and certainly not mine. I should have known Louise better. The artist responsible for Archibald, don't eat the bedclothes slipped this one past the editors. Just look at the poor, broken Mother Rabbit. She knows she has not the faintest chance of being listened to, and poor thing, she is stooped in the way of a mother to whom this is just the lastest in a long line of horror; with nothing good to come. And Archibald is obviously the spawn of the Devil. Just look at those eyes. He'll have the bed after he's finished the bedclothes
Read more

Dick Sparrow - 40 Horse Hitch, and Neil Dimmock's 46 Percherons

-
Image
Here's a clip of Dick Sparrow driving 40 horses. It's an amazing sight, particularly when the shot changes to show the team from the rear and you get the great incongruity of modern American corporate architecture as a background to the wagon and horses. I love the anticipation in the video: the sense of something amazing being just round the corner is palpable. Thanks to Christina Wilsdon for telling me about this world record 46 Percheron hitch (alas just stills) but you get the idea.
Read more