Vintage Cherished Teddies Irish Shamrock Bear Figurine – Wishing You A Lifetime Of Shamrocks And Smiles, Enesco Hillman Resin, 2004

Read the base of this one slowly, because it records a changing of the guard: © 2004 Hillman Family LLC. Every earlier Cherished Teddy — this shop's 1996 Mindy, 1999 Bear Hugs, 2003 Blaire — is signed © Priscilla Hillman personally. By 2004 the artist had moved the rights into her family company, and the individual signature era was over. Flip any Cherished Teddy and read the copyright holder before the year: it dates the piece faster than any catalogue.

The bear herself is the quiet kind of Irish. No leprechaun hat, no green beer: a cream dress with ruffled collar, mint piping and buttons, a silver ribbon bow with a shamrock tucked in, a straw basket brimming with clover, and hand-painted grass beneath her feet — a girl out picking in a field at morning. Her motto asks for nothing but the obvious: "Wishing You A Lifetime Of Shamrocks And Smiles."

A small point of accuracy the Irish will notice: the basket holds shamrocks — three leaves, not four. Three is Saint Patrick's Trinity emblem and the badge of Ireland itself; four is the luck charm. This is a bear about ancestry, not fortune.

Marked with the handwritten registration number VC2/496 — a previous owner formally adopted her through Enesco's registry — with item number 0000812 and all felt pads intact.

For the Irish shelf, the March mantel, or the collector filling in the last good years of the series.