SONNEBERG MUSEUM BEAR 2022

#29 – 2022 Limited Edition 100 Bears Worldwide
Traditionally, our museum bear is always in a teddy bear in our series of Sonneberg museum bears.
Shown as a juggler with his bell stick in his hand, it seems as if this year’s model had come directly from the hustle and bustle of the “Thuringian Fair”.
The “Thuringian Fair” is the best-known exhibit at the Sonneberg Toy Museum and represents a typical rural folk festival in the Thuringian-Franconian region
of the 19th century Brussels awarded the “Grand Prix”.
All Sonneberg toy companies and students from the Sonneberg industrial school,
where Hilde Hermann also learned the art of toy making, were involved in the implementation of the design.

The history of Sonneberg toys goes back to the 17th century.
Those first Sonneberg docks and little horses were crude and crudely carved out of wood.
The “Sonneberger Little Rider” (around 1700) with his “little whistle in his little ass”,
which became the world-famous symbol of Sonneberger toys, bears witness to those early beginnings
and formed the template for many other marks referring to toys, such as the logo of the Nuremberg Toy Fair
or the box of the world-famous toy retailer FAO Schwarz in the USA who emigrated from Germany.
When, in the 18th and 19th centuries, more and more jugglers and jesters roamed the country and
showed off their acrobatic skills on the fairgrounds, this also had an impact on the design of toys.
In the pattern book of the Sonneberg toy makers from 1831,
there are a large number of play dolls that are depicted as jugglers or musicians.

Over time, more and more toy manufacturers established themselves in the Thuringian region around the town of Sonneberg,
and the town of Sonneberg soon developed into the center of the world toy trade.
Our company, which was founded by our grandfather Max Hermann in 1920, was one of the most important toy manufacturers in Sonneberg.
The “stuffed articulated bear” – called teddy bear for short – became one of the most successful export items.

The Sonneberg Toy Museum has great merit in preserving historical evidence of the Sonneberg toy industry.
There are also some old teddy bears from our grandfather from the 1920s and 1930s in the showcases.
Our annual Sonneberg Museum Bear is, above all, a homage to the wealth of ideas of the old Sonneberg toy manufacturers and
to the historical significance of Sonneberg toys.

A LITTLE ABOUT THE SONNEBERG MUSEUM.
The Sonneberg Museum is one of the oldest toy museums in the world. In the possession of the museum there are some old Teddy Bears made by Max Hermann, who gave these bears to the museum in the 1920’s and 1930’s.
The idea of Max Hermann was to give Teddy Bears to the museum for protection, so that they will be preserved for prosperity.
In 1994 Ulla Hermann decided to design a special bear for the Sonneberg Toy Museum every year and to give always the number 001 of each model to the museum. This bear is handed over to the president of the museum every December for the previous year.

The common sign of all of these Sonneberg museum bears is the embroidered representation of the “Sonneberg Little Horseman” as the symbol of the old tradition of Sonneberg Toys.
Sonneberg is a town in Thuringia , Germany , capital of the district Sonneberg .