Eyes of Schoenhut

Regular sized Schoenhut circus animals are most commonly differentiated by their eyes - glass eyes or painted eyes (GE or PE). What few collectors know is that Schoenhut produced many of their later animals with an applied eye decal - it was not painted. This article explores varieties of Schoenhut's glass eyes, painted eyes, and decal eyes. Schoenhut produced their glass eyed animals from the start of their circus production in 1903 until about 1918 and produced painted eyed and decaled eyed animals thereafter. Glass eyed animals are generally more desirable with collectors since they are the earliest versions and appear more life-like. The folk-art collectors seem to like many of the painted eyed animals better. Hand painting the eyes created a great deal more variety and strange and often funny-looking expressions resulted.

Glass Eye Varieties
A Style II GE lion with yellow iris glass eyes.	Glass eyes appear with at least two distinct iris colors - brown and yellow. Some animals such as the elephant, can be found with either color. This may have been simply because the production line ran out of the correct eyes and they did what they needed to do to keep production going.		A GE polar bear with brown iris glass eyes.

Painted Eyes Schoenhut began painting the eyes of animals previously produced with glass eyes in 1918 as a result of the loss of their German supply source due to WW I. Also, at the same time, their source for German bisque heads also stopped thus initiating the production of the one part head performers. The company then redesigned their circus animal production and artists began painting eyes where previously glass eye were inserted. This was not a great leap since the gorilla, the goose, and the monkey had only been produced in a painted eye version. Some painted eye varieties of animals are the rarest. A example of this is the transitional painted eye tiger. The first PE tiger is identical to the GE version including the full ball neck. It is very rare. The tiger was soon redesigned to eliminate the ball neck. This single piece molded head tiger was the last produced and is the most common tiger found.
This PE Pig shows the extent to which Schoenhut artists went to achieve the expression they wanted. This pig's eye was created using five different colors - white, pink, red, brown and black. Hand painting is clearly evident. This pig may have been made in Europe as other animals from Europe with this eye detail have been photographed.		This fabulous, very primitive looking PE leopard displays its hand painted green eyes. The artist smeared the eyebrows a bit and the pupils are off center. This PE version has a filled mouth with painted canine teeth and is the rarest leopard.
Typical painted eyes are three colored - white, brown, and black as shown on this kangaroo. Notice that there is a single dark "eyebrow" above the eye.		The iris colors are commonly green, brown, and rust. Sometimes the whites of the eyes are painted yellow.

Decal Eyes In the depression years of the 1930s, Schoenhut was faced with a difficult market for their toys. Production efficiencies to cut costs were necessary to stay in business. One such move was to eliminate the hand painted eyes and substitute an eye decal. The decal eyes animal variety is not generally differentiated from painted eyes by most collectors but we think they should be. I don't believe that all animals were produced with decal eyes but examples of the regular sized alligator, Arabian camel, Bactrian camel, cow, donkey, deer, dark horse, pig, rhinoceros, zebra and most reduced sized animals have been found. The decal eyes are very likely the rarest versions of most, if not all, animals. Decal eyes can be easily spotted since they have black borders all around the eye except for the corners, and the iris and pupil are perfectly formed. The alligator and camel below show off their decal eyes. I don't know how many color variations of the decal eyes exist, if any.
The decal eyes alligator. Notice the perfect circles of the iris and pupil and the black border extending all around the eye but open at both corners.		The decal eyes camel. This great looking camel was probably among the last made by Schoenhut.
Now you know about the eyes of Schoenhut's Humpty Dumpty circus animals.