Margarete Steiff was a German toys manufacturer, which had started to produce soft animals since 1880, with some left-over material from her uncle’s factory. In 1902, she is convinced by her nephew Richard Steiff, employed in her company, to create a teddy bear. He returned from the zoo of Stuttgart, where he has made sketches of bears. He presented to her the plans of an articulated bear. She manufactured a prototype that she exhibited at the Fair of Spring of the toy in Leipzig in 1903. Steiff Company had an enormous success at that time.

The orders came flooding in from all over; in particular one from America, where a rich person named Hermann Berg asked some more than 3000 specimens and contributed largely to the popularity of the Steiff cuddly toys. In 1907, the manufacture of the teddy bears exceeded the million. Today, some bears of Steiff remain. They are recognizable by a metal button in their left ear

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