Note: I used to have photographs on this page of a Tiffany cat whose name was Arthur. His photographs were published with the kind permission of his human guardian – Marianne. Unfortunately, the pictures have been lost because Google hosted the pictures and for some inexplicable reason the pictures disappeared. An error must have taken place on the Google server. This is mainly my fault for putting the pictures on a Google server and not on the server hosting this website. I apologise for this error. I hope the words are still useful.
The page is divided into sections for tech reasons. Links at base of page to next section.
If the “discovery” story is to be taken as fact then this cat breed is as natural a breed as the other well-known natural breeds such as the Norwegian Forest cat and Maine Coon to name a couple. Except the moment of “discovery” happened more recently, in 1967.
As is often the case the history is a little cloudy. I feel the history of a cat breed’s creation and development is quite important as to a certain extent, it defines the breed. This is particularly so in the case of the Thai (a traditional type Siamese), for example.
My reading of the history of the Tiffany cat is that either this cat is a discovered cat (in 1967) and bred from thereon, or the breed is the creation of crossing Foreign Longhair/Angora, Havana, and Abyssinian cats.
In 1967 a cattery owner, Jennie Robinson, bought two young semi-foreign long haired chocolate-colored cats, one male and one female as part of the sale of an entire estate (this may have been on the death of the previous keeper). These two cats mated and in “breeding true” all the offspring where the same as their parents. The color is a “self color” (solid color with no banding on the hair shafts).
In Canada in 1973, and running almost in parallel with the USA creation/development of this breed, it is said that the same type of cat, of unknown ancestry, as had happened in the USA, turned up at the home of a Canadian. Thus began the Tiffany cat’s history in Canada, from which point, breeders began to develop the breed.
A visitor, Ricardo Delgado, asked, “What is the difference between the York Chocolate and Tiffany cats?” – Not much and I don’t know!
Magic sounds like a wonderful cat. Thanks for telling us about him. Your picture – which I would love to see – was too large to upload. What you could do is email it to me and I’ll add it to your comment or if you like messing around on the internet, just below this box you’ll see a link to very short page on how to reduce the size of the image online.
Magic is our Tiffany cat. We adopted him from our neighbors who moved. He loves to be let in and out of the house 12 times(at least) per day! He is wild and crazy and loves to hunt. He likes to get close and tap you with his tail. I think this is his way of keeping tabs on his people! He is almost 10 years old, but he still runs around and plays like a youngster. He has a very strong personality — not shy either. Here is a photo:
Thanks so much for the website/page on Tiffany cats. My beloved and belated Dusty (1995-2012) is so much like Arthur. Congrats to him for being the Archetype TIffany cat!
Precious and her beautiful hair.
Beautiful and smart.
As handsome as a cat can be. She looks big too. Impressive cat. Thanks for sharing.