Old B****RD Bears (we pronounce it Old B-Starred Bears when in respectable company) is what we like to call a retirement home for Bad Taste Bears.
All of the Bad Taste Bears you see on our website are discontinued designs that are no longer for sale as “new” in shops. These bears became known as ‘retired’.
We’re CCS Products Limited – a small family business based in the North East of England, where it all began.
Peter Underhill, a designer from Coventry, came up with the Bad Taste Bears concept in the mid 1990s. His sketches were picked up by Piranha Studios in 1999 when the first Bad Taste Bear was born. The range began with just six figurines on sale in the Gadget Shop – and at this stage the bears were being hand-cast and painted by home workers in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Another North East company, OddCo, acquired Piranha Studios in 2008 and itself ceased trading in 2015.
The original Piranha Studios and OddCo series of Bad Taste Bears are now all retired and many are highly collectable with a worldwide fanbase. They are presented here as a pre-owned collection.
Brand new Bad Taste Bears today are sold by Chocolate Starfish Limited and a list of stockists is available at the official Bad Taste Bears website.
We’re fans and collectors ourselves too. Here are some of our personal favourites…
P.S. All of the photographs you see on this website have been taken by us in a lightbox. Some haven’t been removed from their boxes.