Dean's Rag Books

The Dean's Rag Book Company was founded in 1903 by Henry Samuel Dean to launch his brightly colored, printed rag books for children who ‘wear their food and eat their clothes.’ Popular artists of the day, including F.M Barton, Stanley Berkeley and Charles K. Cook, were employed to work on the artwork for the books, which were produced in a number of different languages, including French, German, and Dutch.

In good condition, a reasonably common book in any of these languages might fetch £15-20 ($20-30), with rarer books commanding £50 ($75) or more. Rag books were also produced in Russian, but these are all extremely rare, as the first shipment never reached its market: the Germans marched into the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius the day after the shipment arrived and its fate has never been discovered.

Dean's soon diversified Dolls and teddy bears, which were, at first, printed on material to be made up at home.

The first stuffed bear was made in 1915, and by the 1920s and 1930s Dean's were at the forefront of British bear manufacturing. The company experimented with design and produced two different toys based on real bears, one in the 1950s (now worth around £550/$840) and the other in the 1970s (now worth £250/$380).

Molded felt dolls, with characteristic printed shoes and socks, were made from 1920 onwards. These included Princess, Smart Set, Frilly and Sunshine dolls, as well as dolls based on famous characters from children’s stories and nursery rhymes, and stage characters, like Stanley Lupino Lane. Look out for identifying marks such as stamped ‘Hygienic A1 toys, made in England, Dean’s Rag Book Co. Ltd’, or the oval stamp of a terrier fighting a bulldog for one of the famous rag books.