My uncle just showed up with like 4 trashbags of beanie babies he got for like 50 bucks at a Yardsale.
He had me pick a ton for my 3 year old. Does anyone still even care about these things? Ugh, the 90's threw up in my living room.
>>5613320
Not really. They're basically the original Skylanders/(and inevitably) Amiibos. Aftermarket will eventually be oversaturated with 'em.
>>5613320
I think a very few of them are still worth something, the rest are worth the dollar or two you'd expect.
Still need to sell these.
My entire family put it on me to take care of the whole bin.
They are nice as far as stuffed animal toys go. Nothing to complain about really.
>>5613409
Good luck with that. The damn things are at every goodwill and thrift store.
>>5613381
>(and inevitably) Amiibos
It's already happening with Amiibos.
I get that some dumbasses lost money on these but why the hate? They're pretty good, especially for the price.
I have that exact animal on my dashboard I'm my impala
Are you a cia spook
Oh answer me .
They were cute and fun to collect as long as you liked them for what they were and not the delusion that they were an investment. Beanie Babies were one of the few things my grandma and I bonded over when I was little. She had a little collection of them and helped me look for rare ones I wanted. I always think of her when I see them.
A few years ago I found a killer whale one with a skinny-font tag in a bin at a Goodwill. I paid fifty cents for it. According to an ancient Beanie website it was worth $600 at one point in time. I kind of get a kick out of owning something that once sold for such a crazy amount of money, even if it's worthless now.
>>5613320
Someone needs to organize parties using beanie babies as water balloons and see how many times they can be thrown at each other until they burst.
>>5617065
>investment.
I used to watch clean house. I think I remember three different episodes where the husbands had a beanie baby collection and claimed they were an investment for their kid's future.
All the episodes were long after the beanie baby hype happened so most of them weren't worth anything.
>>5616994
Is it?
I stopped bothering with Amiibos when it became a hassle so very early on but I'd definitely like to own some of Amiibos that were "rare" but I'd never pay more than the retail price.
>>5617065
Yeah, it's the only vice I've ever seen my mom get into. It was actually really nice that there was something that me and her could both get equally excited about. It also meant she usually wanted to buy me them almost as much as I wanted them.
It honestly is unreal just how hard the bubble burst on them. I'm always tempted to just start buying them all up from the Goodwill. I could sleep on a pile of beanie babies without spending much.
>>5618048
It'd be significantly cheaper than a mattress and easier to clean. A pretty good investment I'd say.
>>5613381
>Skylanders
What the fuck is a skylander?
>>5618318
its best you not know. Also pops are the new beanie babies
>>5616955
Not as much as you would think. I live about a few blocks away from a Goodwill and I only see one pop up every now and than. Also none of them ever have their tags which is a downer.
>>5618328
what's your going rate per baby? $1? 50c?
>>5618331
My local Goodwill used to sell small plush toys for 50c back in 2009 but in recent years everything is a dollar up.
Prices vary depending on what worker happens to be in charge of pricing the items. Sometimes you'll see a small plush toy like Beanie babies marked at a dollar and sometimes you'll look and it will be priced at $2, $3 or even $4 which always pisses me off. One things for sure Beanie babies haven't sold for 50c in my local area for over six years now.
Found this Youtube video a few years back and thought this thread might get a kick out of it.
It's some local Home Shopping Network channel trying to sell Beanie Babies for crazy amounts of money like $1,999.95 back in 1998
It's funny to see a grown beer drinking every day kinda guy get so hyped over them and trying to make it sound like the deal of the year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-OqzEOs_DY
>>5618328
You must live somewhere magical, they're always here. Too my 6 year old brother to goodwill and he found something near 15-20 of them, he walks over with huge armful of beanies and yelled, 'I can't believe they have something so valuable at goodwill!" The cashiers were amused.
>>5618502
I used to watch this shit as a kid because that idiot got so worked up trying to shill those things. Hilarious.
>>5618502
Huh, apparently some people are still trying to sell that maple bear for like $150 in some mint sealed container thing. Most are like 5 bucks shipped though.
I wonder if anyone actually managed to make good money off these. Someone must have before the bubble burst right?
>>5618574
I really wonder what happened to make everyone around the world just suddenly lose interest in them. It's like when the 90s ended and the clock struck midnight on the year 2000 the world got together and collectively said in one voice "WE'RE DONE!"
>>5618798
Well for all the people buying them as an investment there were only a few people genuinely interested in owning them at those prices, so I assume those people lost interest and there was probably a rapid period of scalpers selling them exclusively to other scalpers before everyone realized what was up.
>>5618798
Believe it or not, it was almost exactly like that. Ty pulled this huge publicity stunt claiming that all Beanie Babies were going to be retired on January 1, 2000. They even released this somber, all-black bear called "The End." When the day arrived, they went "just kidding lol" and introduced a whole new range of Beanies, but that was pretty much the last straw. Everybody was done at that point and the market nosedived. Interest had actually been waning for a while but that was definitely the end of the fad.
>>5618897
Did TY depend on the collector market at all? They've continued making them for over a decade since now.
>>5618911
I'm sure they temporarily benefited from the increased demand, but it's not like they saw any extra money from people selling $5 stuffed blue elephants to idiots for $4000. They definitely benefited from the publicity as it established the brand as a mainstay toy line. It helps that they actually are well made, cute little toys, but brand recognition is probably the main thing that's kept them around.
>>5613320
I fucking love Beanie Babies. I have a fuckload of them. Should I post or does no on care?
>>5622214
Post.
>>5622224
Alright. I gotta set them up first so I can take as little pictures possible.
Okay, here's like 1/4 of them. I'll post better pics, sorry if they're toaster quality.
>>5622261
I remember looking for that white dragon with the shiny wings a lot as a kid. I had the version with the crazy colored body and thought they were siblings or something.
>>5622345
I have that guy somewhere. I'll post soon. Trying to get pics is hard in this light, I only have a lamp in my living room.
Alright. That took so fucking long.
Beanie dump.
Anyone lurking?
>>5622628
Yeah.
Enjoy your bedbugs.
>>5622608
>dat buffalo
Oh man, I love buffalo. That must have come out after I lost interest, or else I just forgot about it. I loved how much variety there was. Dogs and cats are fine, but the best Beanie Babies were all the kooky ones like the scorpion and the purple platypus.
>>5622261
>Shinegreymon
What a nice surprise.
>>5622608
I have that walrus :B
>>5622644
I just got to work I'll post the rest in a sec.
moar burbs
>>5622791
Good eye and good taste.
This bear's name is The End. How bleak.
Snip (middle) is my favorite of the cats. Was one of my fucking favorites as a kid.
(This collection I'm posting is not my original collection. I have no fucking idea what happened to them, but they were all played with, ruined, and tagless, so it's fine they're gone. I'd literally set up ecosystems and shit outdoors with them. Lions/cats in the grass, lizards and birds in the forests, dragons on rocks or "mountains" etc. and they were all filthy and played with and dirty)
Anyone still lurking?
>>5622837
Yeah.
>>5622841
coons
I'm not sure why, but over the course of distribution, TY changed the name of this chicken or whatever from Strut to Doodle, but I have both because I don't know.
I fucking LOVE this guy. Never had him as a kid. Only found him a few years ago when I started collecting them again. So fucking rad. A fucking mean-ass pig?
This guy is actually a survivor of my original childhood collection. There's a few of them. I think this lion and the Easter bunnies are OG's.
I used to pretend these guys were wizards or sages or some shit that guarded all the animals from the dragons and shit.
It was autism.
Lizzie the blue lizard was / is my fucking favorite.
>>5622345
here's your dagrons m8
>>5622960
whats the purple one
>>5622961
>>5622958
Sorry I ment this one in the background
>>5622864
Other way around. "Doodle" was apparently the name of a Chick-fil-A mascot (I guess this was before they started using the cows?) and they called foul, so he became Strut instead. TY had sort of a lax relationship with other companies' trademarks, which is rich considering they threatened to sue people for using the word "beanie."
>>5622883
All right, Grunt! The most badass Beanie Baby, and probably the only one with angry eyebrows.
>>5622965
Princess. I have a real fucking soft spot for this one. At the time, it was rare (although now it's probably worth no more than 20 bucks) and no stores had it, except one, but it was 100 bucks. My parents would take me to the toy store every week (if I was good) to pick out a beanie, and that purple bear was in a glass case above the rest of them and my parents wouldn't get it for me because it was so much money.
When I started collecting again, I found it for like ten bucks in some local toy/sports shop. Love it.
>>5622960
Thanks. Just remembered I also had a Beanie Buddy of the brown one.
>>5622883
cool, i dont remember that one but cool.
we went down a street of specialty shops recently and all of them , no matter what theme they were (food, anitques, decor) had beanie baies for sale. They were still six bucks each and had probably been there for twenty years.
>>5622966
>>5622973
>all this Grunt love
fantastic taste
>>5622969
I never had a beanie buddy, those are the big things, right?
>>5622973
And I should add, I fucking LOVE coming across old places with beanies there. They always have them for cheap. I think I got the bulk of my current collection from this store that opened up in my local mall that sold them 3-for-$7 so I stocked up on ones I didn't have.
As a lad, everyone knew I liked beanie babies, so one birthday party, I got this parrot from like 3 different people. I wasn't even upset, I thought it was neat I now had a flock. I always killed off the birds and shit while playing, like getting eaten by predators or whatever.
For some reason, I thought bears were like, sacred or rare beanies so I never used them for play. I don't know why.
I still do not get it.
>>5622998
What?
>>5622968
That's actually really cool. Depending on where it was made and what edition it is it could be worth a bunch of money. Or it could be worth like $5.
>>5623003
If I had to guess, I'd say the latter, but I guess doing some research couldn't hurt.
I really like this guy. He gets his own post.
>>5623003
yeah i just bought one from a flea market for a dollar because I heard they were rare. Turns out there are different versions based off the tag and mine was worthless but eh, it was a dollar
>>5623010
I have that shark it's the best.
>>5623018
I love ones like the shark with cool additions most others don't have (jaw).
Aaand that's it. That's everyone.
>>5622996
That brown bat takes me back. When I was a kid my mom had this friend who collected these and she'd give me and my sister one every time we visited her. I remember she had the whole collection on this one table except for the bat, which was on a lampshade on her night stand.
>>5623027
The bat was another one that had a neat feature like the shark's jaw (velcro on wings so it could hang on stuff).
What is the most expensive beanie baby on the market today?
>>5623047
T H I C C
H
I
C
C
>>5623047
>>5618897
>The End
I vaguely remember getting my hands on one of those. It was in purple packaging I think, although I have no idea where it is now. Would you by chance know how much it's actually worth? eBay shows around $150 which seems incredulous.
>>5622588
What's the huge dog one on the right called
>>5623114
There's some on there for like $5 shipped so unless there's different tags like Princess I'm guessing it's just ebay scalpers who don't know what year it is.
I decided to dig my Beanie Babies out too, if anyone cares. I don't have nearly as many as the other anon, but I have a few that are interesting.
>>5617065
Here's the whale (Splash) with the skinny logo tag. The tag is actually creased a little now that I look at it closely. Guess the previous owner should have used one of those heart-shaped tag protectors...
Like the one this guy has! I bought Humphrey the camel a few years ago on eBay from somebody who had several of Humphrey, Peking the panda, Chilly the polar bear, and a few others that sold in the low four figures back in the day. Obviously, having multiples of all of these in mint condition raises some suspicion.
According to the seller, they acquired them in an estate sale from a couple who "frequently made business trips to the Orient in the mid 90s." Translation: they were running bootleg Beanie Babies. And apparently never got caught, because I imagine the counterfeit goods would have been seized and destroyed if they had been.
I suppose it's also possible that they were the ones getting fleeced, but they should have done their research better if that's the case. A real Humphrey has solid black eyes, not brown-ringed eyes like this one. Also, there's a little die cut hole in the tag protector that's smaller than the red plastic tab on his tag, indicating the tag protector was slipped on before the tag was attached. Anyway, I don't mind. I think camels are really cute and I always wanted Humphrey when I was little. His connections to international crime make him even cooler.
I forget where I got this Peace bear, but the weird thing about him is he's not the original Peace. He's got a later generation TY tag and a copyright date of 2010 on his butt tag. His head also seems rounder and more stuffed than the older teddy bears I have, but only slightly. I guess they made another run of Peace around 2010? Which makes retirements kind of pointless? I mean sure, it's not EXACTLY the same because the tag is different, but still.
This illustrates the brilliance of TY's manufacturing process. Aside from the felt used for Grunt's tusks and spines, and the big button for the dog's nose, all of these use the same materials, just sewn together in different patterns.
Also I just wanted to post my Grunt since we agree he rules.
Normal Patti Beanie Baby and oversized Patti Beanie Buddy. Patti was my favorite out of all of them. I don't know why, I guess I just loved the absurdity of a purple platypus. Most of the other Beanies were fairly subdued and realistic, and then there was Patti.
'Murica bear. This damn thread is making me want more Beanie Babies. Unfortunately I can't display them anywhere because my dog thinks anything plush should belong to him. Back in the closet they go.
>>5613320
My mom loved beanie babies and still has hers - though she didnt have a million of them nor did she over spend.
Friends and even my mom end up buying me all the Halloween TY stuffed creatures - mostly cause i'm a Halloween person and the Halloween figures tend to be adorable to me so friends give me them as gifts.
>>5622820
That guy was the last beanie baby.
>>5622588
Your dog kind of has a
>you gonna eat that? if not, just throw it, i will
look on his face
>>5623782
I remember Peace being very rare but then TY made another run of them or something but people didn't know about it so my family bought like 3 of them at retail price whatever that may've been and we sold each of them for $20 I think. We were selling them "cheaper" than others but we knew we had to get them out before people knew it was re-released.
Besides that I only had a weiner dog which I eventually sold to my mom for twice retail but she only did that for me and not because it was really worth it. My mom and sister however had huge collections and would go to stores at 6 am to buy them all. When the bubble started to burst they were smart enough to sell them before they went too low and I don't know if they made any money but I do think they at least might've broken even.
>>5618502
>$21 dollars per piece!
Jesus, I kinda ignored this craze whilst it was going on, but that's an insane price.
Are there any books/documentaries worth reading/watching about this craze? It really fascinates me.
>>5622983
This lil guy was my fucking bro
I never had a huge collection of beanie babies, but I always liked them because there was such a large variety of animals. Like forget a dog or cat, here's a lobster, deer, moose, and camel.
>>5623894
There was a very good article I once read, I don't know if it was linked either here on /toy/ but it may've even been back when Digg was a thing. I think it was by the NY Times.
>>5623002
the appeal of these
>>5623950
They're cute, that's about it.
>>5623787
This is much of the reason why I love beanies (the only ones) and dislike the newer ones so much, the simplicity of their designs. Despite how "featureless" those four guys are, they're all distinctly what animal they're supposed to portray. Really great toy line, mates.
>>5624439
*the older ones
>>5623861
YOU HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD.
This morning when I got home, I went to take a piss and I came out to find this little fucker had swallowed his scarf and nose. I hope it takes an hour of pushing to shit that thing out. Good thing beanies are fucking worthless.
any ferret/polecat/otter/badger babies? Mustelids are my favourite mammals
>>5624802
I remember there being an otter, not sure about the rest.
>>5624802
It's one of the newer ones, so I don't have him, but he's cute I guess. I don't like the texture of the fabric he's made of though.
>>5624792
WHAT THE FUCK your dog
This made me laugh way more than it should.
>>5625068
Lucky for him I had two of this Christmas Teddy. Little fucker.
>>5624792
>hairless cat.
Excellent choice my friend.
>>5622585
Is that just a regular, non-stuffed dog in the background?
>>5625102
Yeah he's alive.
>>5618318
What the fuck is a google?
>>5618318
I have a confssion to make.
I have every single original Skylander... Thought they were cool as fuck at the time, and Imguess they're still pretty cool, but not worth it at all. It's the worst fucking game I've ever played.
That being said, should I post them? Semi-thread related. Stupid fads, etc.
>>5623005
That Kangaroo took me off guard, my sides.
>>5622989
I had Bongo! I loved him so much.
>>5625181
Post.
>>5622345
That dragon is still my favorite beanie.
Right when the beanies increased in popularity, I noticed I had a rare variant my mom had gotten for me. We ended up trading it for $300. Was pretty rad. Thank you, white faced Nip the Cat.
...But I was retarded and turned around and spent it on more beanie babies.
All of them except the squirrels and crab (my mom took those) are in a huge tote in the back of my closet.
>>5626960
post em fag
you might have some I don't have so I can pick up the (classic) ones I need
>>5622753
I think someone was armybuilding the buffalo at one time.
Also frogdad
What is the best way to display these guys, bros?
I had them on a shelf for awhile but dust started collecting in like 3 days so I brushed them off and threw them in a bin. Wat do.
>>5624439
I saw some current ones in the window at a Claire's yesterday. They look like neon Lisa Frank nightmares with giant heads and big watery eyes. The simplicity of the original ones is what makes them so charming.
>>5626984
>>5618798
Pokemon
>>5623047
The EXTREMELY limited Diana one where unlike the normal Princess Di for mass-market collectors, the limited run was made using her actual hair and parts from her dress recovered from the crash, no official stats were released on how many were made, but amateur BB forums have hypothesized that given the size of her dress and haircut at the time, there's 20 or so in the wild
>>5627077
My ex kept them on her dashboard if they were VIP animals, it was starting to look like the white version of Mexican 40-something year-old grandmothers loading their rear window with head-bobbing chihuahua figures
>>5623950
They're cute and there's a huge variety of animals.
>>5627475
Fucking really? That's morbid.
>>5627471
This.
Parents of 90s children were so foolish to think that mass produced toys, cards, etc. would hold much value.
They related niche nerd hobbies of the 60s like comics and trading cards to a generation that had Chinese sweatshops popping them out by the hundred thousands.
>>5628515
>niche nerd hobbies of the 60s
> comics and trading cards
Those weren't niche at the time; which is why people are willing to pay tons for certain ones to relive their childhood, as opposed to comics and cards from the 90's onward, where they where niche. Comics and cards where also pumped out by the hundreds of thousands, too, the difference is that no one thought to preserve them. They where tossed around,t hrown away, ripped and bent up, etc.It made it so, despite the numbers of things made, there are few surviving, pristine example. By the time the 90's rolled around, everyone was predicting what would end up rare and ironically took measure to ensure they wouldn't be, which kills the value.
>>5628539
Man the 90s really was a lose lose for comics. Even the LCSs who were selling shit like Death of Superman for $10 a pop ended up getting fucked over by the overconfident decisions of distributors in the end.
>>5627475
>the limited run was made using her actual hair and parts from her dress recovered from the crash
