The Jakas company began producing teddy bears in the late 1950s, in Melbourne. 1950s-The earliest teddies were distinctively different to those made from the 1960s on-wards. Fully jointed, and with brown glass eyes, they were made from a wool/synthetic fabric, with woven fabric for the pads (possibly being reversed pieces of the body material). The […]

Jakas began production in 1954 in Melbourne by Marion Stanford, reaching its peak in the 1960s-80s. Sought-after, Jakas teddies are very collectable. Early Teddies-1950s The earliest Jakas bears are comparatively rare. Made from mohair, they were fully jointed and stuffed with kapok. With glass eyes, these bears were good quality but often unlabelled and so […]

The first teddies appeared on the world market in 1902/3. It was only after WW1 when Australia began to be less reliant on imports and manufactured more products, that teddy bear production officially began.Joy Toys in Melbourne (1923) and Fideston in Bunbury, WA, were the first significant producers of teddies in Australia.

Florence Upton first published her book ‘The Adventures of the Two Dutch Dolls’ in 1895, which told the story of her two wooden dolls and their friend, a black rag doll, given to her by her Nana. (These black dolls were popular toys for Egyptian children at that time, and were brought back to England […]