I walk by a couple of little boutiques that sell Beanie Babies. They’re enclosed in little plastic boxes and have price tags of around $50. But I’ve never seen them sell any! The same batch of them are still sitting in the window displays for the last year or so.
I had a guy friend that got sucked into the hype, standing in lines (crowds) to buy newly released Beanies. He had a magazine subscription that fueled the hype, too. He kept telling me about how such-and-such Beanie was now worth hundreds of dollars. I just kept thinking, “They’re just little bags of beans!”
So is my friend (that I haven’t seen for a couple of years) sitting on a gold mine, or just bags of beans.
Bags of beans, I’d say. You hear a lot about how much BB’s are “worth,” but I have yet to find a single person willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for these glorified stuffed animals. Not that they aren’t out there, but anyone looking to liquidate their Beanie collection is going to have a challenge on their hands.
The Beanie pyramid was really quite true a year ago or so, maybe the year before that. I can remember when the Princess Di Beanie came out and people paid $250.+ for it. I can also remember when the guys at the flea market down the street were selling it for $20. It basicaly died about a year ago or so.
I like Beanies, but not that much!
I only have four, and only ones I personally like. But then, I like stuffed animals…
Dolls, however, are another story. The most expensive doll I own will have cost me 135 dollars, when I’m done paying for it.
Currently, on ebay, there are eight thousand offers that hit the search term “beanie babies.” This one, which probably will be screwed up by the time I post it, is asking $1800 for a collection of a whole hell of a lot of 'em:
Overall, it would appear that they are going for between one and five bucks apiece, but I don’t really understand this whole thing. Ah, well. Back to trying to corner the tulip-bulb market, I guess.
Hmmm…I’d say they’re worth whatever anyone’s willing to pay for them.
I collect stuff because I LIKE it, not for the money. My gramma yells at me for taking my dolls out of the boxes because then they aren’t worth as much. Hello? I’m not going to sell them, and it’s not much fun having a doll in a BOX…
I have a niece that collects them. She never pays 50 bucks for any of them, but she does trade for others of equal ‘value’. I think that is really what the price is listed for.
I bought a new 2000 Beanie last weekend. I buy them strictly because I like stuffed animals, and I find them very cute. Anyway, I got a new one- Cheeser the mouse. He’s white and his outside is totally different then any others I’ve seen. It’s like a velvety chenille material. I cut his tags and he’s sitting on my work printer keeping me company.
I think the people who truely thought they were going to make a mint on Beanies when they came out were a little foolish. It’s not like they were a rare commoditiy (like a baseball card). They churned the things out like M&Ms for Gods sake! I bought about a zillion of these things for my neice, and now she’s looking to SELL them. Sigh…
Zette-have you seen Grace, the bunny? She’s really cute-she’s yellow with long, flopped over ears and her eyes are closed and she’s praying…it’s so sweet!
I got her a month ago!
I find it pretty interesting that Ty, the company that makes Beanie Babies has made a concerted effort to squash the secondary market. They have flooded the market with the Princess Di Beanie as well as a few others that were in high demand and they refuse to supply dealers who charge ridiculous prices. By all appearances, they are really trying to keep the price down so kids can buy them.
Of course, they don’t make any money off of the secondary market but they certainly could. They could also charge $50 each for these things instead of $5 and people would still buy them (see Hummels, Precious Moments, Collector Plates, etc).
Out of curiosity, I had just done a little web research on this very subject.
I did a search for Beanie baby price guides. I then looked up the most expensive listed Beanies (over $100). I took my ‘list’ and went to ebay.
I searched at ebay for all of the Beanies on my list. All of the listed Beanies could be bought for less than $20 each.
Interestingly, a specific beanie would be listed at ebay for $5.00 minimum bid. While the same type of Beanie, from another vendor, is being sold for a ridiculous high price.
I say its over. The ‘Beanie price guides’ are just a way for some to feel better about spending all that money on Beanies. But, IMHO, they will never get that money back.
Phil, I have to disagree about Ty and its motives. I was working in a toy store during the height of the Beanie craze here in Michigan (about 2 1/2 years ago). They had many tactics, that to the cynical viewer (myself) seemed engineered to create & maintain maximum demand.
examples:
They would not tell stores what beanies they could expect to recieve in any shipment. “you get what you get” was their attitude. This ensured that consumers would be literally lining up in the hopes that that their special beanie would be in.
Seemingly never producing enough to meet demand. Personally, I don’t see how a company can fail to meet demand of a very basic stuffed doll over a 2 year period unless it’s intentional. What? someone else corner the bean market?
2.b. AND never sticking to a shipping schedule. “when we’re ready to ship it, you’ll recieve it.” Unbelieveable insensitivity to their retailers overall.
“retiring” designs and then issuing a virtualy identical “new” beanie – see “Peace” the bear & “Garcia” the bear, numerous kitty designs.
Some of the examples you provide might be explained by the fact that Ty must have been completely unprepared for the demand, and I don’t think they’ve ever really caught up. With the exception of the McDonald’s Teenie Beenie promotions, I have never seen an ad for Beanie Babies. I’m still not sure how these things are marketed. however, you raise some excellent points. The whole retirement business is pretty suspicious and I was not aware of how their dealers get treated. I’ll quit defending them. They seem to be doing fine without my help.