Collections Part 1

In the first blog post of #blogjune I mentioned I would talk about my collections. So I decided to start with the biggest of my non-book collections. Teddy Bears.

At last count I had over 320 but that was awhile ago. I haven’t been adding to my collection as frequently as in the past, and Miss A has claimed some so I am not sure what the latest figure would be. One day I will update my count and finish photographing each one individually.

I have brown bears, and black bears, white bears and red bears. Pink bears,  green bears, blue bears and yellow bears.

I have tiny bears (5cm), small bears, medium bears, large bears and one giant bear (160cm).

I have bears with hats and bears with t-shirts. Bears with dresses (and gold lame’ underpants) and bears with nothing but the fur they were made with.

I have police bears, and book bears, elephant bears, bee bears and even a fortune teller bear.

I have bears from Germany, England, New Zealand, Russia and everywhere in between. I go on holidays and bears return with me.

I have cheap bears from $2 shops and exclusive expensive bears from the Steiff factory in Giengen Germany. I buy bears and get given bears.

But the bear that is treasured the most and kick started my collection is Horatio. A well-loved tan bear with a growler (that no longer works due to overuse) that my mother so thoughtfully and lovingly made me when I was 17. He may not be the cutest bear in the world, with his disproportionate facial features but he is mine and was made just for me. He is a great listener and is good at providing the right amount of comfort when needed without being to clingy. Plus he doesn’t ask for much in return.

I don’t really remember why I started collecting bears after Horatio. I did have bears as a child, although my favourite soft toy (which I still have) was a white dog with big floppy ears I named Deefer (or Beefer when I was pretending he was a bunny). One bear turned into 2 and 3 and 4 and before I knew it I was bringing 27 bears home with me from a European holiday. I suppose as I have always been a collector, as you will find out later, teddy bears were just another thing to collect.

Horatio, my lovingly handmade teddy bear.