Museum of Me : A Collection

The Museum of Me staff has been hard at work installing a new exhibit for November. This has involved some dusting, rearranging, and visiting with a few old friends. If you'll please follow the docent, she'll show you around this month's exhibit, simply entitled A Collection. 

I don't actually have a lot of collections so this was an easy one to feature. It's made up of Steiff stuffed animals. (The small group of salt cellars and knife rests above the animals might look like I am a collector, but maybe we'll talk about those pieces in another exhibit someday.)

This collection makes me happy because I didn't actually pursue any of these animals for the sake of collecting, and I'm emotionally attached to all of them. It started with my mother. Several of these were hers, and when my sister and I were cleaning out after Mom died (17 dumpsters worth), I couldn't bring myself to give them away. My sister was having a harder time parting with things, but I was so tired at the end of each day of cleaning that I found it easy to limit myself to just a few small things, and these animals were perfect.

My mother seemed to have mainly cats and rabbits, but there is also Flossy the goldfish. I wish I had had the chance to ask her about them. Many of them still have have their name and ear tags and don't look like they were well-played with, but I will never really know their backstories.

I like that this collection has three different Mannis. The one on the far right was my mother's and the other two were given to my sister and I, most likely for Easter. The Museum of Me does not deal with illegally-obtained artifacts, but I will admit that several of these may have originally been given to my sister. Let's just say that they're on permanent loan. The rabbits below (two Snuffys and the sweet little bunnies that fit so nicely in the palm of your hand) are also on permanent loan (as decreed by the museum director):

I did use babysitting money to purchase several Steiff animals as a teenager. 

These included a deer,

owls,

bears,

and Joggi the hedgehog. The Museum hasn't added to the collection in decades, partly because the board would not approve the expense, and mainly because any more additions to the collection would exceed the museum storage space. The director briefly entertained adding a reindeer to the collection, but ultimately resisted. 

Some of you may have noticed the slightly bedraggled-looking bear on the far left. He doesn't have an ear tag or a name tag, and is technically a fake. But this is "Coffee Bear", named when one of the boys spilled coffee on him and liked how he smelled afterwards. When the Museum was culling its larger collection of stuffed animals, the curator could not bring herself to get rid of him, so Coffee Bear sits proudly next to the "real" Steiff bears. He is real because two little boys loved him. 

After I brought these home from my mother's house and installed them in the Museum, I started looking up values for some of them. Some of them are worth quite a bit, but I eventually stopped. I can't imagine selling them, and although they aren't played with and are just displayed on one shelf, they are priceless pieces in The Museum of Me.

Be sure to visit Kym today for her new exhibit, and several others may also be participating. The Museum exhibits will be changed monthly on the second Friday of the month, so please stop by again in December for the next carefully curated installation. (The gift shop is on the right on your way out!)