Beanie Babies are stuffed toys created by the American businessman H. Ty Warner in 1993. Just seven years after he had founded his company Ty Inc. in Oak Brook, Illinois.
Beanie Babies differentiated from your typical stuffed toys by featuring plastic pellets (or beans) rather than conventional soft stuffing. Over the next couple of years, the popularity of Beanie Babies continued to slowly grow. Before long they had become a craze that you simply couldn’t ignore. They were even cited as the world’s first internet sensation. With many people collecting them as a financial investment, due to the high resale value.
Much of the value in Beanie Babies comes from either mistakes on the bear or tags, or because of different variations that make them incredibly rare. If you’ve got one lying around, it could be worth a small fortune!
Beanie Babies
BEANIE BABIES: THE ORIGINAL NINE (1993)
In 1993, Brownie and Pinchers (Brownie was later renamed Cubbie) were the very first Beanie Babies to be shown to the public. The ‘Original Nine’ Beanie Babies were displayed at the New York Toy Show in 1993, however, they didn’t hit shelves until 1994.
Many of the Original Nine Beanie Babies can be worth a lot of money today, depending on certain factors. If you have any of the Original Nine Beanie Babies with a 1st Generation Tush Tag then you could be sitting on a small fortune.
The Original Nine Beanie Babies were Legs the Frog, Squealer the Pig, Spot the Dog, Flash the Orca, Splash the Whale, Chocolate the Moose, Patti the Platypus, Brownie the Bear, and Pinchers the Lobster (some had a spelling error as ‘Punchers’).
BEANIE BABIES (1994)
While the Original Nine were first shown in 1993, they didn’t go into factory production until 1994. By this time a number of other Beanie Babies had been created.
The 1994 Beanie Babies include Mystic the Unicorn, over the years four different versions of Mystic have been released. Two were released in 1994, both with a tan horn, one with a fine yarn mane and one with a coarse yarn mane.
Though they came out at the same time, the fine maned Mystic has a first generation swing tag, whereas the unicorn with the coarse mane has a third generation swing tag. This has created quite a difference in value, with fine mane Mystic valued around $4,000, and coarse mane Mystic selling for closer to $1,000.
Mystic isn’t, however, the only sort after Beanie Babie not in the ‘Original Nine’. Only 25,000 units of Humphrey the camel were ever produced, he is currently valued at around $2,000.
BEANIE BABIES (1995)
While sales were slow at first, so much so that many retailers refused to buy the products in the bundles Ty offered them. Other retailers outright refused to buy them in any form. By the end of 1995, Beanie Babies had become a true phenomenon, they were even considered the worlds first internet sensation.
The third wave of Beenie Babies included Peanut the royal blue elephant, this is the Beanie Babie credited with starting the Beanie Babies collecting craze. Only two thousand royal blue Peanut’s were released, the design was then changed to a light blue, making the original royal blue ones both incredibly rare and also popular among collectors.
While not the most valuable beanie babies, the original royal blue Peanut’s do hold significant value, fetching anywhere between $1,500 and $5,000 each.
BEANIE BABIES (1996)
By 1996 Beanie Babies were so popular that even McDonald’s wanted to get in on the action. Ty released a new product called Teenie Babies as well as it’s standard Beanie Babies line. Teenie Babies were a miniature offshoot of the standard Beanie Babies. These were sold with McDonald’s Happy Meal’s to celebrate the Happy Meal’s 17th Birthday.
1996 also saw the release of Garcia the tie-dyed bear, each of these bears is entirely unique due to the tie-dye used. This bear was named after Jerry Garia, band member of the Grateful Dead, who had died the previous year.
The bear was “born” the date that Jerry died (August 9, 1995). The fast retirement for this Beanie Baby was due to an alleged lawsuit that the Garcia family filed against the Ty company, claiming that the name “Garcia” was used without permission from the family. In cooperation with the lawsuit, Garcia was retired and a similar bear named Peace was released.
BEANIE BABIES (1997)
By 1997, Beanie Babies were truly at the peak of their popularity. Ty was releasing new characters all the time, as well as other Beanie Baie related products.
After the death of Princess Diana, a ‘Princess the Purple Bear’ was released in her honour, with all proceeds going to the Diana Memorial Fund. Princess has long been considered the most valuable Beanie Baby in existence, however, a number of different versions exist.
One such version, known as the ‘ghost version’, which was manufactured in Indonesia and featured PVC pellets and a space on swing tag, is up for sale at $507,000. While it hasn’t sold, making it hard to value, other more versions of the Princess Bear have sold recently for as much as $92,500.
Also released in 1997 was Peace the tie-dyed bear. Peace was an innovative style of Beanie Baby when it was first released, being the first one to feature an embroidered emblem. It also came in a tie-dye pattern, which meant that no two bears looked exactly the same.
There were a number of tag variations as well, if you happen to have one of them, you may be sitting on a gold mine. A mint condition Peace Bear can sell for as much as $5,000 on eBay.
Other 1997 Beanie Babies that can be worth a lot of money, depending on variations, are Gobbles the Turkey and Claude the Crab.
BEANIE BABIES (1998)
1998 saw more notable Beanie Babies released, some of which are fairly valuable today. Erin the Irish Bear is a limited edition bear that recently sold on eBay for $3,500.
Other Beanie Babies released in 1998, such as Clubby (with errors), also regularly sell for a few hundred dollars at a time.
BEANIE BABIES (1999)
In 1999 a new wave of Beanie Babies were released, some of which are now worth a lot of money. ‘Millenium’ was released in January 1999, the magenta bear paved the way for the upcoming millennium. This toy gains its value from spelling mistakes found on the swing tag, the tush tag, or both. Millennium can be found spelled with one ‘n’ – Millennium, and with Gosport, Hampshire, U.K. spelled as ‘Gasport’.
Different combinations of these mistakes make for a variety of Millennium beanies, the most expensive listed at $5,000.
In December 1999 Beanie Babies finally came to an end, with the final ever Beanie Babie named ‘The End’. However, within a year production on new Beanie Babies began with the first bear in 2000 being named ‘The Beginning’. Almost twenty years on, Beanie Babies and Beanie Babies products are still being released.
