The Century of the Teddy Bear

Rating:
Summary: Selection of the Century for Teddy Lovers
Review: Serious collectors and loving keepers of amiable hugs alike are so fortunate to have this new selection from author Constance Eileen King and the Antique Collectors Club.

Any reader familiar with the Antique collectors Club publications appreciates their outstanding coffee table book quality and comprehensiveness. Their collectors' guides have far reaching appeal in a variety of categories from metalwork to British 19th Century furniture. In publishing The Century of the Teddy Bear, they are acknowledging the Teddy Bear as an appreciating and respected new category in the antique and modern collectible marketplace.

Each page of this chronology is stretched to the margins in full-colored photographs of charming rare teddies and bearaphenalia treasures. Informative captions are placed next to each photo detailing delightful little tidbits of fact and folklore.

The text begins by telling the Teddy Bear's history well before his birth in the early 1900s. It traces the undeniable appeal of the bruin as a character in fable back to the time of King Arthur (whose name is derived from the Latin Arcturus or bear guardian). Continuing on with delightful details of a history full of remarkable twists and turns that have created the teddy we know today which has become a respected part of the collectibles marketplace fetching record hammer prices at illustrious auction houses as Sothebys or Christies.

This book is so valuable in that is has been written from the perspective of a noted authority in the antique doll and toy field. But most importantly, Ms. King is also an author who understands the soulful and endearing qualities of the Teddy that pull at the nostalgic heartstrings of any Teddy Bear lover. After all, the little bear she was given at six months of age is still a "close friend". She understands what makes the value of a Teddy Bear so much more than simply its market collectibility.