I'll always love my Beanie Babies.
January 16, 2002 12:30 AM Subscribe
I'll always love my Beanie Babies. I don't care if I did lose money. The decadent nineties have come to a close. The world is in upheaval. And a simple barterer of velveteen cutsies can't even love his stuffed animals properly.
Heh, yesturday there was an episode of Third Rock from the Sun shown, the one where Dick starts collecting beanie babies.
posted by tiaka at 4:40 AM on January 16, 2002
posted by tiaka at 4:40 AM on January 16, 2002
Bears that might have gone for $150 three years ago now sell for $5 to $10.
HA! Might have gone for $150, meaning that if you could find someone willing to pay 150 you'd get 150.
My girls got out their Beanie Babies over the weekend. Not to check their value on eBay. But to actually play with them.
I get the feeling they didn't sell very many of them back when they were hot. So why didn't they play with them more back when they were hot? Where they being greedy, hoarding them in their closets and bragging about how much they were worth?
posted by Keen at 4:55 AM on January 16, 2002
HA! Might have gone for $150, meaning that if you could find someone willing to pay 150 you'd get 150.
My girls got out their Beanie Babies over the weekend. Not to check their value on eBay. But to actually play with them.
I get the feeling they didn't sell very many of them back when they were hot. So why didn't they play with them more back when they were hot? Where they being greedy, hoarding them in their closets and bragging about how much they were worth?
posted by Keen at 4:55 AM on January 16, 2002
A co-worker bought every new Beanie Baby every week ($50+ per visit to the Hallmark store), insisting the "investment" would send her three teens to college someday. Better she should have put it in a 401k or a bank. Sad.
posted by Carol Anne at 5:42 AM on January 16, 2002
posted by Carol Anne at 5:42 AM on January 16, 2002
As of right now, I am surrounded by beanie babies. Not mine, my girlfriends. They are everywhere. I been watching this since she started collecting and I think I know more then the the article writer.
There are several problems with the article.
The much-touted Beanies the girls were given as presents during the 1998 craze, such as Glory the All-Star Bear or Princess, the Lady Diana memorial bear, have fallen like a lead bean bag. Bears that might have gone for $150 three years ago now sell for $5 to $10.
True, but with a *. With any new Ty product there is going to initially be a HUGE demand. Stores would get 12 of em, some nut who spends all day tracking the shipments would gather their entire family to buy em all. Beanie Babies were fairly new at this point, older Bears were going for very high prices because the they were old, not as many were made as the current styles. So they were extreamly over valued at first. That is where they get the 150 dollar prices. Not to mention, the princess has 2 different types of pellets inside, one more rare then the other. I call this PS2 syndrome or "the hot toy" of Christmas time. Same idea, all year long. So bottom line: People were thinking these would be just as rare as the old styles, so they drastically overcharged. Soon as supply caught up, price went down.
Sought-after models like Coral, Bubbles, Grunt and the Lefty/Righty political combo that sold for hundreds of dollars can now be found for $50 or less.
Big problem here, sure the value is going to go down of these. Especially the Lefty/Righty. Lefty and Righty are probably the most counterfeited of all the Beanie babies. I think I read something somewhere about 50 percent of them are counterfeit out there.
"There's no money to be made," said Jason Burch, one of the few Beanie traders still left at a Dallas-based site called Getcollecting.com. "They're popular still, but now it's just a cute toy worth $6."
No money, why? Because people sucked the life out of it. I personally know of 4 people, all competing in the same area, to get new releases. Basically, these no-lifers, retiriees, and dealers would literally call or visit these stores serveral times a day. If they found something valueable, they would call their entire family to come and buy out the stock. The stores tried putting a limit, and through this they were able to skirt that limit. So once these people got them, they would sell em for 3-4-5 times what they paid for it. Not to mention the stores that sold their Ty product out the back door. They would never even put out the most valuable styles... owners, and employees would keep them and sell them on ebay. People just gave up the hunt, because if you have a job, your not going to keep up with these people.
Years ago, local collectible dealers could look at a toy and say "this widget is rare," Tautfest said. "Because we knew we had the only one. Now, that widget is not rare. If you go onto eBay, there's 10 of them. There's no such thing as rare anymore."
Worse then the toy collectable? Try the comic book collectable market. eeeech. I'm glad the only thing I collect is porn .jpg's.
Pokemon followed Beanies down in a spiral, Tautfest added. "I know kids who busted their tails cutting grass to make enough for a $50 Pokemon card, and now they can't give them away," he said.
This one is easy. Why? Because the company keeps coming out with new cards that beat the old cards. Its a game and in the end the only winners are Nintendo and Magic the Gathering people. That is all the Pokemon cards are, a stepping stone to Magic cards.
Newly issued Beanies still get a short run-up in price for a week or two after release, Burch said. He might be able to sell a new bear that retailed for $6.99 for closer to $15 for a few days. But that's where eBay comes in - prices go down quickly, because everybody knows where to shop.
Its not that they know where to shop, its that they don't care anymore.
When something is hyped as "collectible" from the moment it sells at retail, so many people will store them in mint condition that, by definition, they can never become "rare." Let that be a lesson to the ridiculous grown men I saw at the 1998 All-Star baseball game at Coors Field, who took their complimentary Glory All-Star Bear and put it straight into a Tupperware container for safekeeping.
Good move. There is currently 0 of these listed on ebay right now. If any Beanies are worth something in the future, these will be highly collectible.
I don't buy Beanies for her anymore... why? Last Christmas I got screwed on an ebay auction. Basically I was out of about 40 dollars. Left a sour sour taste in my mouth. I got her a fountain this year, she probably appreacates it more.
posted by andryeevna at 6:27 AM on January 16, 2002
There are several problems with the article.
The much-touted Beanies the girls were given as presents during the 1998 craze, such as Glory the All-Star Bear or Princess, the Lady Diana memorial bear, have fallen like a lead bean bag. Bears that might have gone for $150 three years ago now sell for $5 to $10.
True, but with a *. With any new Ty product there is going to initially be a HUGE demand. Stores would get 12 of em, some nut who spends all day tracking the shipments would gather their entire family to buy em all. Beanie Babies were fairly new at this point, older Bears were going for very high prices because the they were old, not as many were made as the current styles. So they were extreamly over valued at first. That is where they get the 150 dollar prices. Not to mention, the princess has 2 different types of pellets inside, one more rare then the other. I call this PS2 syndrome or "the hot toy" of Christmas time. Same idea, all year long. So bottom line: People were thinking these would be just as rare as the old styles, so they drastically overcharged. Soon as supply caught up, price went down.
Sought-after models like Coral, Bubbles, Grunt and the Lefty/Righty political combo that sold for hundreds of dollars can now be found for $50 or less.
Big problem here, sure the value is going to go down of these. Especially the Lefty/Righty. Lefty and Righty are probably the most counterfeited of all the Beanie babies. I think I read something somewhere about 50 percent of them are counterfeit out there.
"There's no money to be made," said Jason Burch, one of the few Beanie traders still left at a Dallas-based site called Getcollecting.com. "They're popular still, but now it's just a cute toy worth $6."
No money, why? Because people sucked the life out of it. I personally know of 4 people, all competing in the same area, to get new releases. Basically, these no-lifers, retiriees, and dealers would literally call or visit these stores serveral times a day. If they found something valueable, they would call their entire family to come and buy out the stock. The stores tried putting a limit, and through this they were able to skirt that limit. So once these people got them, they would sell em for 3-4-5 times what they paid for it. Not to mention the stores that sold their Ty product out the back door. They would never even put out the most valuable styles... owners, and employees would keep them and sell them on ebay. People just gave up the hunt, because if you have a job, your not going to keep up with these people.
Years ago, local collectible dealers could look at a toy and say "this widget is rare," Tautfest said. "Because we knew we had the only one. Now, that widget is not rare. If you go onto eBay, there's 10 of them. There's no such thing as rare anymore."
Worse then the toy collectable? Try the comic book collectable market. eeeech. I'm glad the only thing I collect is porn .jpg's.
Pokemon followed Beanies down in a spiral, Tautfest added. "I know kids who busted their tails cutting grass to make enough for a $50 Pokemon card, and now they can't give them away," he said.
This one is easy. Why? Because the company keeps coming out with new cards that beat the old cards. Its a game and in the end the only winners are Nintendo and Magic the Gathering people. That is all the Pokemon cards are, a stepping stone to Magic cards.
Newly issued Beanies still get a short run-up in price for a week or two after release, Burch said. He might be able to sell a new bear that retailed for $6.99 for closer to $15 for a few days. But that's where eBay comes in - prices go down quickly, because everybody knows where to shop.
Its not that they know where to shop, its that they don't care anymore.
When something is hyped as "collectible" from the moment it sells at retail, so many people will store them in mint condition that, by definition, they can never become "rare." Let that be a lesson to the ridiculous grown men I saw at the 1998 All-Star baseball game at Coors Field, who took their complimentary Glory All-Star Bear and put it straight into a Tupperware container for safekeeping.
Good move. There is currently 0 of these listed on ebay right now. If any Beanies are worth something in the future, these will be highly collectible.
I don't buy Beanies for her anymore... why? Last Christmas I got screwed on an ebay auction. Basically I was out of about 40 dollars. Left a sour sour taste in my mouth. I got her a fountain this year, she probably appreacates it more.
posted by andryeevna at 6:27 AM on January 16, 2002
heh sorry so long :( I didn't realize I wrote a book :(
posted by andryeevna at 6:28 AM on January 16, 2002
posted by andryeevna at 6:28 AM on January 16, 2002
Beanie Babies are stuffed toys with artificial value that grew from an artificial shortage created soley by the company that produced them. I'm glad Beanie Babies now cost exactly what they are worth: the price of materials plus a mark-up for labor and overhead.
Too bad the author's children didn't put all the money they shelled out on cute polyester bags of plastic pellets into a college fund.
posted by jennyb at 7:43 AM on January 16, 2002
Too bad the author's children didn't put all the money they shelled out on cute polyester bags of plastic pellets into a college fund.
posted by jennyb at 7:43 AM on January 16, 2002
A quick check on eBay shows that there's still demand for the Beanie Babies mentioned in that article. This Coral bear sold for $1000, Billionaire Bear for $910, Trap for $600, and so on.
It does seem like the reserve prices on many of the larger auctions weren't met, which indicates people are either trying to price their collections (using an unrealistically high reserve) or just aren't getting their investments back.
posted by waxpancake at 8:41 AM on January 16, 2002
It does seem like the reserve prices on many of the larger auctions weren't met, which indicates people are either trying to price their collections (using an unrealistically high reserve) or just aren't getting their investments back.
posted by waxpancake at 8:41 AM on January 16, 2002
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Or maybe it was Pascal the Penis or Priscilla the Pubic Hair.
On second thought, it may have been Audrey the Aureola or Dylan the Dildo.
However, it may have likely been the onslaught of Annabelle the Anal Bead and Shriveled Samson the Scrotum Sac.
This is too much fun....
posted by Mach3avelli at 2:37 AM on January 16, 2002