One antiqued thing

I wound up only going to one antique shop because I spent the entire amount of money (and then a bit - I had budgeted $40 and this was about $45) but it was something that pleased me, and I really wanted, and something you *rarely* see here in this good of condition

A small (like 5") Steiff pony.

There were a few Steiff toys - small ones (a bear, a dachshund, a rooster, and I think one other in addition to the pony in a case). The pony was the one I liked the best though I admit I was tempted to get it AND the bear, but decided that I need to be kind of frugal, and $45 at one shot at the antique store is kind of a lot.

I don't know for sure how old it is. There is no easy to search information online (and darn Pinterest clogs up search results with unattributed photos) but it looks like it was made between the early 1950s and 1976.



He's in pretty good shape, so he might be more recent. Or at the very least - owned by a collector/someone keeping him as a keepsake*

(*The woman who got him out of the case mentioned her mother having gone to school in Germany and having brought back a few Steiff toys as keepsakes but I don't think these were HER collectibles)

She asked me: "Do you collect Steiff?" And I said, "Well, I have a few" (I have three teddy bears - a tiny one I played with as a child, one my parents bought for me some years back as a Christmas present that was signed by one of the descendants of the original owners, and then a 100th anniversary of the teddy bear one I got back in 2002 or so)

I also added, "I collect toy horses," which works well enough. (Mostly My Little Ponies, of course, but I think I have one or two others....)



He's mohair (and I do think he's maybe more recent because the stuffing does not feel like the excelsior Steiff used in the old days - but even a pony dating to the mid-70s is good, I think).

(Though I don't know. He crackles a little when I pinch him so maybe he is filled with Excelsior).

He doesn't have the little paper chest tag that most Steiff originally came with (and that had a name printed on it), but he does have his ear button. (Apparently his owner cut the paper tag that the button attached away, I can see remnants of it).

In the absence of knowing his "factory" name, I might call him "Hans," after the famous Clever Hans, a horse that was, for a time, believed to have been able to do math. (He couldn't; he was just watching the unconscious cues his owner gave - leaning forward and leaning back. I actually use that example in my experimental-design lectures about the double-blind method and how an experimenter can unconsciously bias results).

Another great horse name is one I learned this morning from someone's random tweet: Potoooooooo, also known as "Pot-8-o"(read the Wikipedia page for the explanation of the name, it's pretty funny). I think Pot-8-o would be an excellent My Little Pony type horse name - either DJ Pon-3's brother or something. But it doesn't feel quite right for my little German horse, so I think he's Hans, unless I find his real name and like it better.

You can see how little he is - about the same size (if a bit thinner) than the G1 my little ponies. I will have to find a good place to display him, also so he's protected from bugs, bugs can be really bad for mohair and it's hard to keep bugs out of an old house in the South.