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HERMANN-Spielwaren GmbH
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HERMANN-Spielwaren GmbH
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When the different parts of a Teddy Bear are sewn and turned, they have now to be stuffed with excelsior. First in the line are the arms and legs and the head. While the arms and legs are stuffed through a hole, which is cut in the fabric, the head is stuffed through the neck.
To stuff these limbs, HERMANN-Coburg uses two
different techniques. Nobody knows today any more - why? - but it is, that
the women stuff in another kind as the men. Also
Rolf-G. Hermann, who
was the last personage, who still knew the old history by his own experience,
answered when he was asked: This was already always the case.
While the men sit on a chair with a hole, through
that they can push their stuffing iron bar, the women use a big wooden belt
buckled around their body, against this they can press their stuffing iron
bar, which is much smaller than those used by the men.
To fill the arms, legs and head with excelsior,
you need funnels in different sizes, dependent on the size of the Teddy Bear.
To stuff Teddy Bears with excelsior is a hard work. You have to wrap up the
iron bar with excelsior and then you have to push the iron bar together with
the excelsior through the funnel into the arm, leg or head. This is the more
difficult as bigger the Teddy Bear is.
And you have only one attempt. In contrast to other stuffing material it is not possible to repeat the same step, when you work with excelsior. When you see, that you have not enough excelsior in your paw, you have to take out the whole excelsior and to start anew again. This is one of the reasons, why the excelsior stuffing is such a difficult work. You need about 3 years education, still you have the best feeling to work with excelsior.
Beside muscular strength, you also need a good feeling for forming, because it is the task of the Excelsiorstuffers, to give the Teddy Bear its beautiful figure. The most feeling you need, when you have to stuff the head. Although the figure is fixed by the patterns, last but not least the finished figure depends from the work of the Excelsiorstuffers. Each Excelsiorstuffer has his own handwriting, so each Teddy Bear is always an own creation. When you learn to read the handwriting of an Excelsiorstuffer, you even will be able to say by the first sight, which man or woman has stuffed the Bear.
When the stuffing of the arms and legs and the
head is finished, and the limbs are jointed with the body, it is now the
second task of the Excelsiorstuffers to fill also the body with excelsior.
This is done by using the hands and a stuffing wood stick.
Because the work of stuffing the limbs and the body is different, there also are existing 2 old traditional names for these both different jobs. While it is called "stuffing" to put excelsior in the arms and legs and the head, it is called "filling out" to put excelsior in the body.
