Sunday, August 28th, 2011 at
5:34 am
vintage tin:Teddy Bears By Bing
When German Teddy Bears are mentioned, undoubtedly people always think of the makers Steiff. However, there have been other pretty remarkable Teddy Bear makers since the Teddy’s birth in 1902 and I think that one of these great makers is the Bing Company.
In 1865, two brothers, Ignaz and Adolf Bing founded the Nuremberg Spielwarenfabrik Gebruder Bing Company producing toys as well as kitchenware and even sewing machines. Like so many other German companies, this one too was very successful and within just two years the company was already employing well over 100 people. The company decided to increase it’s range of products to include carburettors for motor cars and motor bikes, certainly an adverse company.
The Bing Company also began to produce wonderful tinplate toys (which today, of course, are extremely desirable for collectors to own).
In 1907, Bing began to create it’s first soft toys, including the Teddy Bear. Bing, a company now in a very successful market was employing over 3,000 workers but still they found it incredibly difficult to cope with orders, just like Steiff infact.
Bing placed a metal button in their Teddy Bears ears and Steiff found it necessary to take them to court to have this button removed and also to refrain from using the slogan “button in the ear”, as now Steiff had trademarked those words. I would just say at this point that Bing was not the only Teddy Bear Company to copy the button in ear.
Bing then decided to use a metal tag which was black, cream and red, which they clipped into their Teddy Bears ears but still Steiff objected to this. However, not being defeated Bing then placed a button under the Teddy Bears arms. Once again, Steiff objected to Bing using the words “button under the arm”. By 1908 Bing had finally come up with the slogan “G.B.N. tag under the arm”.
isplaying Teddy Bears