Appraisal Day is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the teddy bear by hosting an online auction of 4,000 vintage & limited edition teddy bears on eBay. In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt had refused to shoot a bear on a hunting expedition in Mississippi and the incident prompted a cartoon that appeared in the Washington Post. Teddy bear collectors point to this cartoon in 1902 as the beginning of the teddy bear collecting craze. Appraisal Day Auction Gallery will be featuring many of these original, rare bears from the early 1900s in the auction with some expected to sell for over $10,000 dollars each.

The collection of approximately 4,000 vintage teddy bears is the collection of Ellie Kuhner, a longtime collector and maker of the Ellie bear. Part I of the auction, which began on April 8 and runs through April 15, consists of very rare Steiff, Ideal, Bing, Schuco, Farnell, Chad Valley, Merrythought, Knickerbocker & other teddy bear makers. Part II of the auction, which begins on April 16, consists of modern collector bears including Steiff, Gund, Hermann & more. The auction can be viewed online at http://www.AppraisalDay.com/bearauction.htm or in person at the gallery located at 3 Main Street, Lunenburg, MA.

Appraisal Day Auction Gallery is a leading auction house in New England for fine art, antiques & collectibles located in Lunenburg, Massachusetts. Owned by Paul Royka, nationally known antiques expert, author of several books on antiques and appraiser on the PBS series Antiques Roadshow, Appraisal Day Auction Gallery specializes in live & online auctions of fine art, antiques & collectibles.