A TEDDY bear has broken an auction house's record by fetching £7,500.

The toy, which was made by the German manufacturer Steiff, was recently sold at the specialist auction house Vectis, in Thornaby, Teesside.

Made in 1919, it was part of an experiment by the firm to overcome the wartime shortage of mohair, the traditional fabric used for bears, by using a hessian-like material instead.

Of the few teddies made from this, even fewer had a centre seam like the one auctioned.

It was passed on to Vectis by a woman from a family of Bradford jewellers, who had bought the bear in Austria and maintained it in pristine condition.

The teddy came complete with a set of clothes, which were also sold at auction.

Teddy bear expert Joanne McDonald, who owns Bear Bottoms in Durham City and works as a valuer for Vectis, originally estimated that it could fetch as much as £10,000, which would have put it in the top ten most expensive ever sold.

She said the amount it actually made was still impressive.

"Most Steiff bears of that age go for £2,000 to £5,000, and not many bears reach over £5,000," she said.

"It's still a pretty large amount.

"It went to a private person in this country, and I think they bought it to sell on, which means it could be sold for even more."

Although she would not disclose the buyer's identity, Mrs McDonald said the person was a collector originally from the North-East who now lived elsewhere. She said the selling price of such items was impossible to accurately predict.

"It's one of those things - you just never know what will happen on the day," she said.