Gerber will provide a detailed visual record of your toy's tour of Parisian attractions
Some of history's great thinkers, from winnie the Pooh to Buzz Lightyear, have proved empirically that people can get very attached to their toys. But a former investment banker in France has taken this affection to a new level: for about $140 he'll give your cherished playthings a tour of Paris.
Here's how it works: you send Lamby, Teddy or your stuffed animal of choice to Denis Gerber and he'll escort it around the City of Light, snap photos of it at the Place de la Concorde, the Louvre and other landmarks and return it to you with a digital photo album. For an extra $70 or so, Teddy can take one of four extension tours, exploring chic Paris or the parts of the city featured in The Da Vinci Code.
In a sign that either the recession is over and people are splurging again, or that the economy is still so bad that people are now reduced to living vicariously through their inanimate playthings, Gerber's company, Furry Toys Tours, signed up two customers on its first day — a Flat Stanley and a toy whose name Gerber didn't catch.
The Parisian native says he got the idea initially from the movie Amélie, in which Audrey Tautou's character steals her father's garden gnome and sends it around the world with a flight-attendant friend who sends back snapshots. Since seeing the movie, Gerber has made something of a hobby taking photos of toys for himself and his friends during his travels. And he's noticed he's not alone. "You see a lot of people taking pictures of furry toys around Paris," he says. "And a lot of them are not kids." In fact, a recent survey of 6,000 travelers by British hotel chain Travelodge found that 25% of men who have a teddy bear take it with them when they go on business trips.
Gerber now makes his living mostly from Das Bot, a financial algorithm he developed, so he has time to turn his hobby and his love for his hometown into a business. "I'm an ex — investment banker who enjoys taking pictures of furry toys in Paris, that's correct," he says. "But I don't pretend it's a vacation for the toys. What we're selling is an emotion. We hope people will do this with the toys of friends or partners or children as a surprise for them." Tellingly, his tours are aimed mostly at deep-pocketed American and Japanese customers.
Should you be thinking of sending off a beloved plaything, be aware that travel insurance isn't included, although postal insurance is. Also, Teddy had better arrive camera-ready because Gerber doesn't do hair and makeup: "I wouldn't dream of doing too much to the toys of other people," he says. See furrytoystours.com.