Extremely rare 1925 American made Knickerbocker Teddy Bear. This was the first year Knickerbocker made Teddy Bears and this is the first style produced by the company. This bear has seen better days, but is still a fine collectible.
The Knickerbocker Toy Company: was founded around 1850 in Albany, New York and started out manufacturing educational toys, like alphabet blocks. The unusual name 'Knickerbocker' derived from the nickname for the citizens of New York. The name is a reference to the baggy trousers the original Dutch settlers wore.
The first bears ascribed to Knickerbocker are from around 1925, when the company started to use permanent labels. The company was proud to produce high quality toy animals and called them 'Animals of Distinction'. The Knickerbocker bears were by far the best American bears from that period, but still quite affordable.
In the 1960's, the company won the license to manufacture 'Smokey Bear', until 1977 en became reasonably famous with it. Even a talking version was made, with a build-in tape that told the children about preventing forest fires.
In 1968 the company moved to Middlesex, New Jersey. There, they imported the different parts from Korea, sown and all. At the end of the 1980's the company was closed down.
