Russ Berrie - Sleighbells. Item 4714. Beautiful and Very collectable!

Russ Berrie - Gorgeous Russ Sleighbells Bear.  Item 4714.
Lovely & cuddly with a jiggly bell on his collar and a squeezy button in his tummy that squeaks. He will sit unaided but slouches a little.
Very collectable.

Sleighbells has tags but has been previously loved. Bell has some scratching and there is some fur peeking between the nose threads.
Great as a gift for any occasion or for the Russ Berrie Teddy Bear collector.

Sleighbells is a lovely bear with plush cream coloured soft fur with a sparkle!  Black eyes and puffy light brown nose and mouth. Checkered, Xmas bow tie.  It has a few bean pellets in the rump and feet area to help it sit up well.  Corduroy pads.  Not jointed. 

Sleighbells is surface washable and soft and cuddly.  He measures approx. size 36 cm standing.  Sitting up 23cm.

Russ was founded in 1963 and named after the founder Russell Berrie. Before starting his own business, Russell started out as a toy sales representative, who then began to design his own products. Russ started his business with only $500 and ran it out of a rented garage in Palisades Park, NJ. His first product to reach the shelves were the plush Fuzzy Wuzzies in 1964. By 1966 the company had exceeded one million dollars in annual sales. Passionate about the business of selling and about his products, Russ grew into a major world wide company and set the industry standard for customer service.

By the company's tenth anniversary, Berrie had established a company headquarters in Oakland, NJ as well as a distribution center in California. In the late 70's, Russ Berrie and Co., Inc. expanded Internationally in three different countries, this helped to grow and diversify the company. In 1982 the company was recognized by INC magazine as one of the top 500 fastest growing privately held companies in the US. By March 1984 Russ went public, trading shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol of RUSS.

In 1995 Russ Berrie introduced a new line of nostalgic bears called 'Bears from the Past' which became a favorite amongst many. In '98, Fortune magazine recognized Russ Berrie as the 34th Most Generous Philanthropist in the Country. As the promising small company kept growing and became ever so popular, in 2001 it was named one of the best 200 small companies in America by Forbes magazine. By 2002, the company acquired Sassy, Inc. and on Christmas day that year, Russell Berrie past away. Till this day, Russ Berrie and Co., Inc. is still a major seller in toys as well as other products and the employees honor the memory of it's founder by striving to meet the standard of excellence that Berrie had set as the leader for over forty years.