Nostalgia - Frankenwolf and friendship

Let me tell you a bit about my girl Frankenwolf.
Frankenwolf has to thank my friend Jenn and a mutual friend of ours for her existence. Said friend - also a collector - had asked her at one time to take a Steiff puppet and a Steiff figure and turn them into a new creation.
That inspired Jenn to do the same with Frankenwolf.

Now that might sound quite gruesome to you, beheading two Steiffs and sewing them together, but of course that's just part of the story.
Let's have a look at Frankenwolf's donors.

Steiff has a long history of making German Shepherd dogs, they have been around for over 100 years. Their ancestors, however, still had a bad image which was probably the reason why it took until 1956 before they appeared in Steiff's production.
The first Steiff wolf was a hand puppet named Loopy after the Latin "lupus" which means wolf. That's not surprising to me as there weren't just nice, cuddly puppets, but it could also be useful to have a "villain" (like our childhood non-Steiff devil who was my favorite with his red head). Loopy was produced from 1956 to 1978. He had an open mouth with four fangs and a long red felt tongue. It wasn't unusual for fangs and/or tongues to get lost during play eventually, though.

I always called the one on the right Grandma Wolf,
she seems to be a very happy wolf.

The wolf remained a rare animal in Steiff's line. There are two sizes of a standing Loopy - the smaller one has a closed, the bigger one an open mouth - which were only made for one year in 1964 (one of my personal favorites). Later wolves sometimes turned up as a companion, for example with a Red Riding Hood doll or a polar bear.
The puppet used for Frankenwolf was in very bad shape. Actually, it's surprising that it still had all the fangs. Before throwing the head away as well, though, this was definitely the better choice.

The body was taken from a Micki figure who had a different problem.
First a (very short) word about Mecki. He's a hedgehog who originally came from a German puppet film and became the mascot of a TV magazine where he got his own cartoon. Mecki's wife is called Micki, the children Macki and Mucki. The character had always been quite popular (to be honest, I have never been a fan myself), so Steiff got themselves the licensing rights and made their own versions of the whole family from 1951 on.
Now the early versions had a little problem. The heads were made from rubber which tended to dry out and deteriorate. Later versions were made of a different material.

Pictures by NoName_13 via Pixabay

Well, and Micki had the same problem, but her body was quite okay (even if she had lost her apron and her shoes are a bit scuffed).
Jenn also added a tail and different arms.

Frankenwolf means more to me, however, than just being a unique addition to my collection.
A few years ago I told a little about how I met Jenn. The ex and I were in the USA for the first time and got the chance to visit FAO Schwarz in San Francisco (which closed down over 20 years ago). Steiff made some wonderful and desired FAO Schwarz specials over the years some of which you can see in this video. We were like children in a candy store ... no, wait, toy store 😉

FAO Schwarz Manhattan, picture by Rob Young
 from the UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia

When we had exhausted ourselves (and our wallets just a little bit), we asked if there was something like an American Steiff club or a way to get in contact with other collectors. They didn't have any information on that, but they gave us Jenn's number (let me remind you that data privacy wasn't such a big thing yet back then and in this case I'm very glad about that). Jenn had repaired studio Steiffs - amazing lifesize plush animals - for them before.
Then we sat in our hotel room and the ex decided I had to call Jenn. I was so nervous. How do you explain best to a stranger that you got their number from the toy store because you are a German Steiff collector? I needn't have worried. After five minutes, she offered to show us around everywhere. I told her that unfortunately we were leaving the next day, and that could have been the end of it - but it wasn't.
We exchanged addresses and started writing each other letters, then we went from letters to phone calls which might show you how important this had become for us. This was before cell phones and texting, emails or chats.

The next year we went to the US again and that time we would meet Jenn in San Francisco and I would go home with her where the ex would join his conference was over. That was also when I fell in love with White Dude, by the way, the cat that the previous residents had left behind at Jenn's place and who went back to Germany with us as her own cats didn't want him there, little punks (I loved them, anyway).

That was almost 35 years ago.
We visited Jenn, she visited us, later just me. We have a lot of stories and memories, good ones and not so good ones because that's how life is.
I wish we didn't have about 5,800 air miles between us and could just hang out, have tea (or tap water that she insists on 😉) and cake, talk, laugh, and do fun stuff. The distance makes spontaneous dates just a tad difficult. Time difference and work schedules can also make it difficult to talk, but when we do, we get a lot of stuff covered.

When I said that Frankenwolf means more to me than just a toy, this is what I mean. Friendship. She does ... and my little gnome you have seen before does ... and the surprises Jenn got me on fleamarkets, the teddies she taught me how to sew, and the time she gave me a duplicate key to her place as a sign of her friendship which actually made me tear up.
Can someone please finally invent that transporting device that I need so badly?
But even if we haven't seen one another for several years, we think of each other, and I sure hope I made her ears ring now. As we always say to each other at the end of a call .... love ya, my Jenn.

Nostalgia - Princess / Prinzess Victoria needles

Some years ago when I still did the "Finds of the week" posts, I had some called "I'm a collector" in which I shared vintage items. Over time my collections have mostly stopped growing due to different reasons, but they are still there and still loved. I also have vintage items, some inherited, some gifts, some from fleamarkets, some more interesting than others. So I thought it could be fun to share some of them every, now and then and tell their story.

As this is a collection that's still growing, I have decide to give it its own page on the blog now, so I can update it more easily now.
You can find it here.

Actually, I already started talking about today's small collection a few years ago as part of a homage to needles, I just didn't know then this would turn into a collection of its own.
I have used and broken quite a few needles since I started beading. Bead embroidery, especially on the beaded sneakers (no idea why Blogger insisted to have extra space between the lines in that post) and the HeatherCat sneakers (this is the last post of four which has all the links if you are interested), was extra hard for them (well, and my hands).

In the homage post, I talked about how I discovered vintage paper needle packs while looking for beading needles and how I fell in love with some of the labels.
Most intriguing to me were the Princess Victoria needles because there were variations, and I thought they deserved a post of their own by now because there will probably be one or the other addition to them.
That means I will then update this post instead of the other one which might get a bit too long otherwise.
In fact, this one is also quite long already.

It's nice that the packs don't take up much space, though, and of course I can always use the needles if I need them as most packs are full, this isn't just decoration (or so I tell myself). The packs are scattered throughout my Steiff collection, rather fitting I think as most of it are sewn animals.

So what are Princess Victoria needles? I honestly wish I knew how they got that name.
When I got the first tiny pack - not even an inch - of size 12 sharps, I started searching, but without any success.
What I do know is that there are all sizes, that the packs can have a red or a golden edge and "banner" around Victoria, and that there are different pictures of Victoria. Some have a more vintage look, some look quite modern, some have a blurry or messy print, some a very clear modern looking one.

Some labels are all English, some are all German (saying Prinzess instead of Princess and using the German terms for the needles, such as Frauennadeln), some are a mix of English and German using the word "Prinzess" and "feinste", but the term "sharps", for example.
I even found a picture on eBay UK with an Italian label (and now wish I had bought that pack)!

There are those without a country of origin, but also some that specify it, "Germany", "Made in Germany", "M.i W. Germany, Imp. Allemagne OCC" (between 1949 and 1989), but also "Made in Czechoslovakia" (which means between 1918 and 1992) or "Made in the Czech Republic" (after 1992).
Last but not least, most of them that I have seen don't have a company name printed on, but there are exceptions. So far I have seen "Prym", "Rhein Nadel", and a name I'm not sure about, "St. Witte", "Stowitte"? What's up with that?
Did the needle production go from one company to the next?

And who is this Princess Victoria, anyway?
Does the name refer to an actual Princess Victoria, such as Queen Victoria's daughter (who eventually became the German Empress) or the daughter of Edward VII.? Or does it refer to the Queen herself? I think that's possible because there are also Queen Victoria needles with a similar Victoria on a slightly different background (I don't have any of those). Doesn't it make sense for it to be the same one?
As you will see further down, the needles have been around for a long time, but after all Victoria was crowned in 1838, so could it have been that long?
I doubt she was really important enough for someone to think the name would appeal to buyers before she was a Queen.

At some point, someone must have said "let's call them that forever and ever", but why? Because, you know, you can actually still get a mix of sizes from Prym, but in a plastic tube and not with silver-plated or gold-plated eyes anymore to "protect the environment".
Possibly the manufacturer(s?) intended them mainly for the British market and therefore used the name to appeal to buyers there? Why would they bother to make a difference between the "Princess" and the "Queen" needles at all then?

Then I found this older blog post by Papergreat again that I had already commented on in 2022 and then forgotten right away.
Chris had found the following in The Economist of November 18, 1899, page 1629 - 1630 from the correspondent in France:
"A deputation of cravat manufacturers was received this week by the Minister of Commerce to make representations on the use of false trade-marks on importations of the articles they sell from Germany, Austria, Belgium, and Italy. These goods, the deputation declared, are marked with the words "Made in London," or other words implying that they are of English origin, which appears to be a recommendation with buyers, and the Minister was consequently asked to put in operation Article 2 of the Madrid Convention, under which they may be seized. ... The prices at which these goods are sold are probably lower than those at which they can be imported from England, and French makers are sufficiently protected against imports from England by the higher cost and the heavy duty. It is, however, a common practice to import German goods marked as English, and recently the attention of the British Chamber of Commerce was called to the sale, in France, of packets of needles bearing a portrait of the Queen, with the words, "Prinzess Victoria Needles" and the name of a fictitious manufacturer at Redditch (Note: makes me wonder if it said Redditch on the packs). The spelling of the word princess betrayed the origin of the article, but would escape the attention of the buyer."

So does that mean that a bunch of German companies used that name for the needles trying to disguise where they came from - but why the mix of languages and why the different Victorias? Might they be able to tell me something about the age of the needles, like different Steiff buttons indicate the time period an animal was made?
This is only getting more intriguing. I'm afraid I'm not done with this rabbit hole yet. I'm a librarian and determined which means I'll probably be having a look at some of our databases to see where I can get with those.
Ok, so I'm probably not just determined, but obsessed with these now.

Click on the photos for more detail.

This was the one that started it all. Such a tiny pack, only about 1 inch!

Update Victoria needles April 2025:
I got some more packs. One pack is as tiny as the one above. This time we actually have a name, but I'm not sure what it is.
Googling, I can find one result for "St. Witte & Co." which doesn't help in any way, but there is something between the T and the W. Could that be a badly printed O (I found the name Stowitte, but again without any more info) or is it a kind of abbreviation?
The only other name I found was "Schmidt, Witte & Co.", a shipping company, that didn't help much, either. Or could this be a fictitious company?
Anyhow, this time we have German words for these size 10 sharps and even the Prinzess is written with a z as it would be done in German.

I got these three packs for a great price. All of them are unused and full of big, fat size 2 needles. As you can tell, we are back to English words, too.

To show you the size difference, I took a picture of all of my new acquisitions together.

Then I got these - some sharps and some "betweens", two of them with a German print and one by "Rhein Nadel", another former needle producer in Aachen (which changed their field from needles to automation eventually, so this pack must be from before 2003).

How funny that the one "Made in Germany" has the English print, but still the Prinzess with a z. Even funnier is that the print is very clear and looks more modern, but the "Prinzess Victoria" got mirror-inverted!
This pack looks identical to one I have seen marked with Prym. Did a company make these and then marked them for different companies or did Prym just take over from Rhein Nadel?
Is this a plot to drive me crazy? 😂

Then I went on a bit of shopping spree, but that's going to be it for a while, I swear!
If I get something new, it will have to be some kind of variation (uh-oh, I may have ... in May ...).
This is one result of the shopping spree. It's old new stock from a seller who gets her items from warehouses.
Now I have all the sizes for sharps and finally some packs with the red "banner" instead of the golden one. The edges are golden on all of them - except one which is yellow!

I think the one marked "gold ey'd" should be the oldest, it's also the only one with the "Princess" print and without a country of origin.
All the others are marked "Prinzess" and "Made in Czechoslovakia" except for one that says "Made in Czech Republic", but I don't think they all have the same age as there are different fonts. My guess is that the ones with the red banners are younger, also because one of them is from the Czech Republic which we know must have been after 1992.

Here's a comparison between the two packs of size 0 sharps.
The print is so much more beautiful and elaborate on the old pack, the crowns are completely different, Victoria has a lot more details down to the pendant she's wearing! Even the flowers are more beautiful.

By the way, this is what "gold ey'd" (later gold eyed) looks like. Some of the needles are corroded, but I bet they are around 100 years old if not older, so that's to be expected.

Update May 2025 (any updates after May 20 will be on the new blog page).

This little cutie is also one of the tiny ones.
It's the first one I have with both the German and the English description of "Frauen Nadeln" and "Sharps" and once again Victoria looks different.
The color print is quite messy, though.

This one is my favorite so far. My guess is that it was a sample card, maybe used for representation in haberdashery shops.
It has the sizes 1 to 10 safely tucked into cord loops and an extra needle pack marked 1/9 with the /9 added in handwriting, but actually there are 12 different needles in it.
The numbers under the sample needles with the article number 126 and "Et. 925" (no idea (yet) what that could mean) are also by hand, very carefully done.
The pack is marked "Gold Ey'd Sharps" and "Made in Germany".
Also - yet another "Prinzess Victoria"!

This is a bit of a different needle book that my last acquisition is glued to. I found several examples of this early 20th century needle book in past auctions and one of them showed the exact same needle pack, but in different condition, so I know it wasn't mine.

Victoria looks the same as in the sample card, but this time we got "elliptic gold eyed sharps" in the sizes 3 to 9.

Does someone need a needle? I happen to have one or two ...

Here's the Princess/Prinzess gallery of different faces so far.

Random Saturday - Mr Boxer

I met one of my oldest friends almost 30 years ago thanks to Steiff. My ex and I were in the Bay Area for the first time because of a conference. Back in the days it was still possible to combine a conference and holidays (four states in a week, I still don't know how Americans do something like that), so while he was preparing for his first talk in English in a fancy Berkeley hotel (our motel was not quite as nice), I got to discover the area participating in what was called the "ladies' program" in a flippant way, even if in that case the conference participants' partners all happened to be women.
On the first day, however, we did get the chance to explore San Francisco on our own, and our first stop was FAO Schwarz whose connection to Steiff was famous among collectors thanks to some special editions. After spending some money there *cough cough* we asked if they knew how we could get to know collectors in the USA. They couldn't help us with that, but they offered us the phone number of a lady who had done repair of some studio Steiffs for them before.
I still remember how nervous I was when I called her. How do you explain to someone that you don't know them, but you got their number from the toy store because you collect old plush animals? I guess it was destiny because we are still friends now.

I can't sew. I never learned it, and the little sewing I have to do is exhausting to me, but when Jenn came to visit Germany for the first time, she gave me the sweetest little dwarf that she had made herself, and suddenly I had the crazy idea that she should show me how to sew a simple bear.
In the end I had three bears, I think, I'm not sure where the two smaller ones are.
This one, however, guards my CD shelf from which he falls down quite regularly, even more after Gundel moved in. For some reason she keeps pushing him off which is not something she does with other things. Maybe her headbutts are too much for him. She did again today which is why I thought he deserved a random Saturday post.

His name is Boxer. He's hand sewn from a beige tipped black synthetic fur, has paw pads from dark grey felt, vintage light blue painted glass eyes - with that fur it would have been hard to see the eyes if I had picked brown ones - and a pink nose - which would be very unusual for a black bear, but I found he was a little unusual, anyway.
I called him Boxer because I seriously believe he's in the fitness studio too often. Just look at those shoulders.
Ok, so it's actually that's not his fault, I didn't think the arms would sit that high up in the end, but I love him nonetheless.
He's soft and cuddly and sweet and proof that I have used a sewing needle before! ;-)