Seemingly every person had a favorite stuffed animal growing up. The odds are you took that cuddly stuffy with you wherever you went, and it was probably by your side during some of your hardest times, making it priceless in your eyes. But five of the world’s most expensive stuffed animals manufactured by Steiff have a price tag to indicate their value.
5) Diamond Eyes Bear
Whether it’s a James Bond movie or when Kanye West made good music, we all know that diamonds are forever. The folks at Steiff also know this fact to be true, as they included emeralds and diamonds in the eyes and 24-karat gold for the nose of this commemorative one hundred twenty-fifth-anniversary teddy bear.
Considering the cost of making and finding the right clientele to purchase the bears, they had limited production, so it’s unclear how many are in someone’s home today. However, the most expensive version of this glitzy bear sold for a shade over $85,000.
4) Teddy Bear
The first of anything always fetches a hefty price and is a must-have item for many collectors. For example, If you ever want to go down a rabbit hole, look at the prices for some of the world’s most popular first-edition books. Nevertheless, there had to be the first teddy bear in the world, and Steiff’s ordinary Teddy Bear that sold in 2000 for $105,000 has the distinction. The oldest teddy bear in existence dates back to 1904.
3) Titanic Mourning Bear
Thanks to James Cameron’s epic Titanic, interest in the horrific disaster still fascinates people over 110 years later. In 1912, Steiff made 600 black teddy bears to remember the victims lost in the tragic wreckage in the North Atlantic.
In 2000, a woman—that wasn’t Rose— was lucky enough to know how to keep this prized possession a treasured keepsake because it was completely untouched in storage. The bear netted over $133,000 at an auction, and we can only hope that whoever bought it treated it better than Rose did Jack Dawson. Seriously, Rose—scooch over.
2) Teddy Girl Bear
After the success of their first teddy bear in 1904, Steiff decided to diversify their portfolio the following year and make the Teddy Girl bear.
The Teddy Girl sold for $171,578 in 1994, so who’s to say what the bear would get in 2023? But this bear was such a catch because it was the confidant of British Army veteran Bob Henderson. The colonel took Teddy Girl with him everywhere, including the battlefields of World War II. Teddy Girl said her last goodbyes to Henderson when she sat beside him when he passed away in 1990.
1) Louis Vuitton Bear
Everyone knows the name Louis Vuitton means luxury. Yet, it’s hard to imagine anyone dropping over $182,000 for a teddy draped in the fashion designer’s garb. There were rumblings that someone spent over $2 million for the bear, but the highest record price was $182,550 in 2000. Years later, Kim Kardashian got her third child, Chicago, one of these extravagant stuffed animals.
The stories behind five of the world’s most expensive stuffed animals vary in charm, like Henderson’s Teddy Girl, or over-the-top and gaudy, like Kim’s Louis Vuitton bear. Still, they all share this commonality, keeping them connected forever.
