Collections Within My Collection: Shiken & Other Circus Animals

In my pursuit of circus ponies, I often come across other circus related items, many of them animals. Some of those are just too cute to not add to my collection. Here is a peek at that collection within my collection. (These do not include my Hagen Renaker circus animals - that's a whole 'nother collection within my collection!)

Shiken didn't just do an assortment of some of the cutest circus ponies ever, they also made some circus animals, too! And at least one of them is a Hagen Renaker imitation.

Look familiar? 

He is a lot bigger than the Hagen Renaker Begging Dog, but other than that, they are very, very similar.

He has a Shiken Bone China sticker and since he is made of bone china, he is whiter than the Hagen Renaker dog.

He also has a stamp underneath - it looks like the letter R inside a circle to me. I'm not sure how that relates to Shiken; maybe it indicates who painted it?

Shiken made pedestals to go with their performing animals. I don't know if the green one was intended for the dog or not, but they came together when I bought them from another collector.

There is also a circus monkey by Shiken. Truth be told, I dislike monkeys, and I only keep this one because it is circus related and the only one like it that I have ever seen.

This one also came with a Shiken pedestal in blue with a big yellow spot.

 A Shiken sticker is on the back of the monkey

and it has the same stamp on the base that the dog has.

The final piece in the trio is a seal who is standing on its back flippers while balancing a ball on its (nonexistent) nose.

It came with a black pedestal that has a big white spot, although when I took these pictures I put the seal on the green one by mistake.

There is a Shiken sticker on the seal's side and the stamp underneath.

Hagen Renaker made a circus seal mama and baby set in the 1950s. Ball colors varied per piece and came in gold, red, yellow, and blue. (Photo from Google Images and attributed to hagenrenakerhorses.com.)

I haven't seen any blatant copies of these seals, but I have come across two different sets of performing seals that may have been influenced by the Hagen Renaker pieces.

This group of three seals has no stickers or maker's marks on them. Since their balls are painted in a different color scheme than the Shiken seal's ball, I don't think they are by Shiken. Perhaps Kelvin or Kelvin Bradley made these?

This one has a nonexistent nose like the Shiken seal's!

I think they are really cute but see no clue as to the manufacturer. 

Are they, like the Shiken pieces, copies or even an example of another company taking Hagen Renaker's idea and running with it?

There is a sticker but it is a souvenir sticker from Sea World, not a manufacturer's sticker.

Copies or the real deal, they're all fun to play with and set up scenes for photo showing or doll fun.

A Google search will bring up a lot of Shiken china animals, many in groups of three, but I cannot find any information about the company itself.

Recently I found yet another set of circus seals that I purchased for my collection.

This new set is chunkier and seems to have even less attention to details paid to it than the other seals. I pulled out my other set and made some comparisons.

The largest seal in the new set has a ball whose stripes stop midway around the ball. 

Its eyes are larger and the body and flippers are thicker.

The newest seal's ball has what appeared to be red stripes in online pictures, but when I got it, that red is something that's been added after the piece was made, and it is flaking off. You can feel it as it is raised, almost like a thin strip of rubber that's been glued on and is decaying with age.

The second new seal has the same thick features and the red rubbery whatever affixed to it, too.

Its rubber, too is flaking off. The facial details are not bad,

but they appear to be less refined than the middle seal of the other trio. (Look at the colors on the other seal's circus ball. So pretty!)

I had to laugh - just like the Shiken seal and the littlest seal in the other group, there is no nose on the smallest seal as it balances the ball. 

It is quite a bit smaller than the other, too, but it still looks heavy and unrefined. And, like the others in the trio, its ball has red flakes of what were stripes still sticking to the china. Has that substance has stained the china? Or were there once pink or red stripes that faded?

The new seal set may be chunky, unrefined, and flaking, but I'm happy to have added them to my collection.

I've got some GREAT news to share with you all tomorrow. You might even say it's GRAND. This MOTHER sure thinks it is!

Stay 'tooned!