"The Story of the Magician Fernando" - a circus fairy tale. Hand-printed and hand-bound in an edition of 500. We sell the "Magician" at flea markets, because there weren't any handicraft markets in 1978.
On the first stand is an old teddy bear with an even older top hat on its head. He's holding a bell in his hand and there's a cord running from his arm behind the stand. We pull it, the bear rings, people are watching - the bears - press is born.
Market life is hard, in Nuremberg the ringing bear is stolen from us when it is being dismantled.
That's why the Bären press isn't going under. New children's books are created, large-format prints, postcards, stationery. And because old teddy bears were still available for little money at flea markets back then, there will soon be a new market bear and a rapidly growing family of bears that will watch us at work at home.
Finally, the first big cardboard bear made its way into the program of the bear press.
The jumping jack becomes a model for success. In the coming years, the number of movable paper figures grew more and more until the bear press became a pure handicraft workshop. Every year we hatch new jumping jacks, jackas and beasts.
The demand is increasing.
We still make the printing blocks using the linocut technique and print them out on the Korrex. The actual edition is then created using offset printing. In the 1980s, arts and crafts markets sprang up all over Germany, and the Bären - Presse went on a journey with their "paper circus". The Bären press also finds its way into the big Christmas markets such as Cologne, Aachen and Essen and inspires the public.
In 1998 Dirk Lampe joined Bären - Presse. He takes over the handicraft sheet publishing house from Steffen Mühlhäuser and Roland Adam and has been running the business successfully ever since. Production, marketing and sales relocate with him to Halle/Westphalia. With renewed energy, he expands the distribution radius of the Bären press. The two "old gentlemen" are left with the pleasant task of developing new products.
Traditionally, a new handicraft sheet is still published every year. Every time we go in search of new motifs and unusual movement mechanisms. In the meantime, the Bären - Presse program offers everything a hobbyist's heart desires, from simple flat models to highly complicated three-dimensional figures.
