Identify my wife's teddy bear

by Jim
(Montgomery, AL USA)

My father-in-law bought it when my wife was born (Sept 1980). Not sure if the bear was made in 1980/1979/1978...he was definitely new when purchased...I am just not sure when he was made.

He has a short (very flat actually)muzzle. Rounded white muzzle on a dark brown bear.

His nose is made from plastic it looks like (black..sorta triangular). It did not stick out very far either.
His eyes I think where plastic but without him around (as he was stolen) I cant be for sure The color was black in the centre and orangish/yellow around outside.

The bear is Soft to the touch. Not sure what he was stuffed with. My guess is some kind of soft fill.

Appx 12" or so. I have a picture to attached that you can see my wife's hand (she was 2 months old when the picture was taken in 1980)

One arm (right) turned up in a 'wave'. Dark brown with round white paws and inside ears. Small red tongue sticking out. Also, there is a yellow ribbon. I am not sure if this came with the bear or if her dad tied it on because she had been in the hospital having some leg surgery and had just come home (so maybe he was thinking of the "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree song).

Bought for my wife by her dad when she was born. He bought it at a local drug store. She had it even through college. On our 1st anniversary, we went to Kentucky. We had him when we got to the hotel with our luggage and ran back to our truck and when we got back to the elevator we went up to the room. She noticed about 30 minutes later he was missing. This was in 2003. We looked everywhere. Never found him. She was devastated! I'm trying to find one just like him and surprise her. I could have sworn years ago when I looked at his label, it had the name KMart on the label...but I think I was mistaken because he bought it at a drug store and I can't find a Kmart labelled bear that looks like this from the late 70's-1980. Please help if possible!

Reply

Hi unfortunately it is very difficult to identify bears from the 1980's onwards if they were not made by a top bear maker. So many bears were made from this time which were mass produced in China and shipped all over the world.

From the look of him he doesn't seem to be of any great quality 9i don't mean that to be rude i just mean that he does look like a mass produced bear.

If you remember a label which said K-mart then it is likely that he was produced for the chain store by a company perhaps in china that produce all sorts of goods.

I checked on ebay and found some 1990 kmart bears which have similar looks so you can see that he probably was a kmart bear.

Sorry i could not be of more help Kate

FYI As an Amazon/Ebay Associate I earn a small amount from qualifying purchases.

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