Who is your oldest plushy?

[richila]

My oldest plushy is a tiger my now husband bought for me in 1990 while we were dating to replace a childhood plushy tiger my mother gave away when she decide I was too old for it. I have wonderful pictures of it with my baby boy-who is now 21 years old.

[Swan]

This happened to me quite a while ago, but I think you all may enjoy it.

Back when I was a little girl, I had a very very favorite toy. It was a large black stuffed French Poodle. I got it for Christmas in 1955 and I was instantly entranced by it! I was only three years old and toys were Real.

It had thick legs, a red vinyl collar with two jingle bells on it, a white vinyl leash and a red satin bow on its topknot. The poodle had a red felt tongue and red felt eyelashes and brown plastic eyes and a black plastic nose. Not only that, but the poodle had a squeaker in the left ear! If you pressed that ear it would "bark".

I cherished that poodle! I dragged her along behind me until one day the cheap vinyl leash broke. So I put our cat's harness and leash on her and kept on dragging her along. I would sort of "bounce" her to pretend she was my dog and I was walking her.

The feet wore out. Mama patched them, first with felt, then with denim. her neck got floppy, we fixed that with a cardboard tube slid inside her to keep her head up. As the years passed, she got rattier and rattier, but she remained my constant companion.

The red bow fell out, the eyelashes were eaten by moths, the tongue fell off and she was ratty, dirty, a real mess, but I loved that toy! I couldn't decide on any name for her so she was just "Poodle"


Finally, in a housecleaning preparatory to a move, in 1965, Poodle was given away to Toys for Tots. I had had her for 10 years. But at 13, I was deemed "Too old" for stuffed toys. Tearfully, I pinned a note to her left ear (the one with the squeaker) with a safety pin. It read "I am shabby and old, but perhaps I will make some little child happy. I was loved very very much. - Poodle" I remember, to this day, how I felt, dropping her into a collection bin!

I mourned that dog! I dreamed of her, thought of her, wondered where she was (while fearing that she had been thrown away because of her shabby state) and never a week went by that I didn't think of her. In a way, absent, she became almost... an angel watching over me. Yeah, silly, huh?

When I moved out on my own, in 1973, I began to search. I hunted in thrift stores. Oh, not for her, because I figured that she was probably rotting in some landfill by now... but for one similar to her. I knew the odds were nearly hopeless. She had been a cheap knock-off Fifties toy (we had been very very poor!) but still, every time I was in a Goodwill or Sally Army, I'd hit the toy bin, looking through plushies... Oh, I found poodles by the dozens! Pink ones, gray ones, even black ones, but they were all different. None were even remotely like my Poodle...

SAN FRANCISCO 1998 43 years after Poodle had entered my life and 33 years after she left it. I was rummaging around in the local Salvation Army. As always, I hit the plushie bin. There was a lady ahead of me. She was turning toys over and I heard a jingle! There was a flash of curly black fur. I froze! She pulled a toy out of the bin (big yellow duck, I think) and walked away. My heart was pounding so hard, I was certain everybody in the store could hear it. I reached into the bin and pulled out...

POODLE!

But she was not a worn out floppy wreck with patched feet! She had her red collar and white leash, again! With the two jingle bells!! She had red felt eyelashes! Matching red felt tongue! Check! Hard plastic nose! Tears began to leak from my eyes! Beautiful brown plastic eyes, yes, yes, YES! Shivering, I went to push on the squeaker in her left ear to see if she could still bark.

That's when I broke down.

There was a rusted old safety pin in her left ear! Exactly where I had pinned the note to Poodle back in 1965. The safety pin held nothing. Tears streaming from my eyes, barely able to speak for the rapture of it all, I went to pay for her. She was $2.00. I would have paid $2,000.00!

I KNOW it can't be my original Poodle. Toys do NOT "heal". The eyelashes, tongue, leash, bells and collar had been lost DECADES ago. But then... what about the rusted safety pin? Had she re-incarnated in some unknown way? Her spirit returned to me in the only way she knew how. I know it! The message was not in words or letters. It was in a plain, old metal safety pin in a toy dog's ear.

She will never leave me again! She's sitting on my bed and will remain with me forever. There are many things in this world that can be explained easily. There are, it would seem, many more that CANNOT. Poodle cannot be explained.

Swan

[jemlovecraft]

^ Awww, Swan, your story made me cry!

I'm finally posting mine. I don't have any good pictures of him, but he's my Pooh Bear. He's a GUND Classic Pooh of some sort, 9" tall, yellow velveteen with an embroidered nose, eyes, and mouth. I've never found the exact bear anywhere else, though I've found the matching Piglet. My mom got him and said Piglet at her baby shower and gave me both. She says I was attached to Piglet until she had to wash him--at which point, I latched on to Pooh.

He's the same age as me (almost 18) and all of his yellow velveteen has long since fallen out, making him pretty threadbare. I would carry him around by the arms, so there are holes where his arms meet his torso. Some of his stuffing has fallen out over the years. I still can't fall asleep without him

I've found ONE picture of the right bear, but I can't find its source, even doing a reverse image search.

That's what he looked like new.

Here he is today. If I'm not in my room at bedtime, my dog Nana brings him to me to tell me to go to sleep. I caught her in the act once, and this is what Pooh looks like today:

He wears the shirt to help protect his limbs.

[MxMyaku]

The oldest one in my house technically isn't mine - It's a stuffed bear somewhere in the basement (sad, I know) that snores if you lie him on his back. My oldest one of mine, however, is my Build-A-Bear rabbit, Coco. I've had her since 2001, and I've slept with her or kept her on my bed ever since. She's pretty ratty looking, since she's been through a lot of wear and tear, but she's certainly loved.

[Aurea Arleigh]

Still have my 80's "squeeking" Gizmo and yes still squeeks when shaked. Also have various ninja turtle and chipmunk plushies from same time period

[Aurea Arleigh]

Build-A-Bear

I have the Build-a-Dinos from T-Rex cafe! I have an on and off again dinosaur addiction I try my best to control when I see them .

[E-Beth]

My oldest plushy (I suppose one can call him that) is my teddy bear, TeeBoo, which my grandfather bought for me before I was even born. So that bear is more than a half century old. He's got no fur left, except inside his ears, and his stuffing is quite compacted. He's wearing a dress that my mom bought for me when I was a baby. With a water-skiing bear!

TeeBoo by elizabethyoung2, on Flickr

[Frizzgig]

My oldest plushy is a skunk (weird right) that belonged to my dad, but the one I've had the longest is a rhino that was a present for my first Christmas.

[Jobee]

When I was a baby, I was given a pink and white plushy called Poppy. I lost her little apron, but still have her. I couldn't tell ya what kind of animal she is though. I have no idea.

[she_flame]

I took pic of my doggie (as I couldn't find any). So, there is my loyal companion.