Bush Companion · 1960s Vintage Genuine Fur Koala Toy
Genuine fur, source unspecified · suede hands and feet · leather nose · wooden lacquered eyes · new silk ribbon bow · unsigned, no tags · 1960s · 16cm high · 16cm across the ears · gentle wear only
Run a hand over this one and the difference from a mohair toy is immediate, real fur with it's own natural give and sheen, the kind of texture no synthetic pile quite manages to fake.
There are no tags and no maker's mark anywhere on her, which was typical of the souvenir trade that made Australiana toys like this one through the mid-twentieth century. Fur pelt animals, the source unspecified (but not the protected koala she is shaped to resemble), were stitched into novelty figures for tourists and sold without much record kept of who made them or where. The wooden lacquered eyes and hand-cut suede paws point to a maker working carefully by hand rather than an assembly line, most likely from the 1960s.
The nose and paws are cut from a soft, heavier leather and suede, showing some gentle crackling and light wear at the edges, cosmetic rather than structural, everything remains intact and firmly attached. There has been some wearing of the coat at the right hand and around the lower edge of the nose, where a little of the pelt shows through beneath thinned fur. She wears a new silk ribbon bow, replaced rather than original, in the same cheerful yellow this archive keeps returning to.
Material
Genuine fur pelt (source unspecified, not koala), suede hands and feet, leather nose, wooden lacquered eyes
Care
Do not wash. Wipe gently with a dry, soft cloth if needed, and keep away from direct sun and damp, both hard on old fur and leather. Store somewhere she can breathe rather than sealed in plastic.
More on looking after vintage pieces in our care guide.
Size
Measured flat: She stands 16cm high and measures 16cm across at the widest point of the ears. There is no tag and no size marked, this is simply how she was made.
Our size guide explains how vintage sizing is read here.
Condition
Good to very good. No smell and no active shedding beyond the wear already described. There is some gentle crackling and light edge wear to the suede hands and feet, cosmetic only, with everything still firmly attached. The fur has aired thin at the right hand and around the lower edge of the nose, where the pelt shows lightly through, and the ribbon bow is a new silk replacement rather than original.
Our condition lexicon explains the grades we use.
Before it reaches you
Someone loved this before you did, and I try to honour that properly. Each piece is hand washed, or cleaned in the way that the fabric permits, then steamed until it softens and straightens and feels newly attended to. Wherever a button was missing, it has been replaced with a vintage one from my long-kept collection. Wherever a hem had given way, I fix it by hand. By the time it leaves this room it is genuinely clean, pressed, whole, and looked over one final time before I let myself believe it is ready. Not restored. Not made new. Just returned to a state where it can be loved again, by someone who was not there the first time.
This fur had a life before this one, out in weather this toy has never felt, and it has now spent far longer being a keepsake than it ever spent being wild. Nobody signed her, so the archive lets her keep her own secrets about which shop shelf she started on. She has never once complained about the bow, new and a touch too bright for her, worn like a guest badge at a party she has attended for sixty years. Sit her somewhere she can watch the room, she has clearly always preferred it that way.