The day was August 31st 1999.
Parents and children alike were shocked
and demanding answers
tying up the lines at customer support
and filling online chat rooms
earlier that day, beloved toy company Ty inc. had posted
on their website that all beanies will be retired as of December 31st
a panic ensued after this announcement
causing collectors to begin feverishly
buying up beanie babies and flooding
auction sites.
Concerned parents tried desperately to
reach out to the company but it seemed
that even customer service
representatives were caught off guard
only hearing about the announcement
hours beforehand themselves.
Speculation ran wild and some smelled a
publicity stunt.
With the company's future unclear and no
word
from company executives it seemed that
the end was nigh.
No really, they also announced the last
set of beanie babies that day
including a black bear named
The End... Get it?
but before we get to the end
let's start at the beginning...
not not the bear this time because they
released an another one another bear called-
H. Ty Warner graduated from St
John's, a Wisconsin Military Academy, in 1962
and enrolled at Kalamazoo College in Michigan soon after as a drama student.
He was even cast as the lead role during a production in his freshman year
but had to drop out of school due to inability to afford tuition.
After a few years of odd jobs and trying to break into the industry as an
actor
he eventually took  a job at the Dakin toy company,
Which was one of if not the largest toy manufacturers of the time,
and quickly became one of their best sales representatives.
Reportedly he would meet clients by
driving up in a Rolls-Royce while
wearing a fur coat, top hat, and cane.
I am so disappointed I
could not find pictures!
According to Warner himself "I
figured if I was eccentric looking in
Indiana people would think
'what is he selling let's look at his case'"
I don't know what he sounds like that
could be a good or bad impression I have
no idea .
Clearly Warner was on to something with
his sales strategy because he remained at
Dakin for over a decade
making a six-figure income.
None of my sources seemed to agree on the exact timeline
but he worked there somewhere between 10 to 18 years.
His reason for leaving was also something that no source seemed to agree on
But it was either due to burnout
or that he was fired for creating and selling
his own competing toy line (not Ty inc) on the side.
After leaving Dakin, Warner traveled abroad to Italy to visit a friend
and ended up staying there for three years.
While there he came across a cat plush
that was unlike any for sale in the States.
He felt inspired to pursue creating his
own toy line of plush
returning home to Hinsdale, a suburb of
Chicago, in 1983.
Using a somewhat sizable inheritance of
$50,000,
adjusting for inflation that's around
$130,000 today,
as well as using his own savings
he launched Ty inc in 1986 out of his own home.
His first line of toys were 10 different variants of Himalayan cats,
each with their own colors and names like: Peaches and Angel.
He sold them for around $20 retail that's about $47 today.
What made these plush markedly different from others on the market
was that he under stuffed the animals making them floppy and easy to pose.
Most stuffed animals of the time were rigid and had limited to no pose-ability.
While there was some criticism that Ty's under stuffing was a way to cheapen production
and that the animals "looked like
roadkill"
Ty's cats began gaining traction with local shops
and some of the old retailers he knew from his time at Dakin.
The company continued to expand, and then it finally happened.
the first beanie babies were introduced at the 1993 New York World Toy Fair
and came to be known as the original nine:
Chocolate the moose, Brownie (later
renamed to Cubbie) the bear,
Flash the dolphin, Legs
the frog,
Patti the platypus, Pinchers the lobster,
Splashed the whale,
Spot the dog, (first released without a
spot but later releases included a spot on his back)
and Squealer the pig.
I actually have a Squealer it's one of the later releases and for some reason he's also really dirty.
This new line of plush had several features that set them apart from other toys
chiefly the introduction of PVC pellets combined with the stuffing,
a heart-shaped Ty tag that listed the
animal's name and style number,
and a "tush tag" that listed the copyright
and manufacturing info.
In 1994 Ty modified the hang tag to
open like a locket
and in 1996 they started to include a poem about the plush,
which was a cute addition to the brand.
Later tush tags were given a holographic logo to help identify forgeries.
Of all the features of the beanie babies
most notably of all
was that they retailed for five dollars each
a little under nine dollars today
and were intended to be
inexpensive enough for children to
purchase with their own pocket money.
This new line of toys was fairly well received.
By 1994 more animals began getting added to the roster,
drumming up more and more
consumer interest with each new addition.
Warner restricted the sale of plush to
only small shops and toy stores at the beginning
and limited the numbers each
retailer could buy to
36 of each character a month.
This created a sense of scarcity
and heightened demand for the dolls
because you never knew when or where
you'd be able to get your hands on a
specific style.
The company also adopted a rather
tight-lipped approach when it came to
revealing how many beanie babies were
being manufactured
and what locations would carry specific
animals.
The demand for beanies started to really take off,
but it wasn't until a
decision made in 1996
that the craze really hit
its fever pitch.
Warner announced on the Ty website
that some of the styles of beanie babies would be "retiring"
meaning they would no
longer be produced after a specific date.
Collectors began buying up and selling
these retired beanies
for double and triple their original
prices in aftermarket auctions
and the movement was gaining momentum
fast!
There was suddenly an urgency for
customers to jump on new beanies as soon
as they could to be sure they didn't
miss out and have it as a possible investment
because beanie babies were starting to sell for exorbitant prices online,
even the $1,000 range for particularly hard to find styles
(and this is nineteen nineties one thousand dollars)!
"In like two years, they're worth like 245 dollars and stuff..."
"He's worth about four thousand dollars."
"Debbie spent eighteen
hundred dollars on this hard to find bear."
people were starting to line up outside stores on restock days
and some stores even instituted wait lists due to customer demand!
Travelers would go to other countries to stock up on beanies
they couldn't find in the States and bring them back with them!
There was such a strong demand for beanie babies
that they became considered an
investment.
Even a divorcing couple spent hours
sitting on the courtroom floor,
splitting up their collection!
And this is real, I am not making this up!
This happened in 1999.
By 1998, Ty inc made over 1.3 billion dollars,
that's about 2 billion
today,
and employees took home an end of the
year bonus equal to their salaries.
A new market of beanie related products
took the form of display cases
and heart protectors to ensure that children with the audacity to even try to touch their own toys
wouldn't devalue them by damaging the hang tags.
Parents were convinced that their children's beanie baby collection
would one day pay for their college educations.
I find this especially humorous not only
because of the crazy high cost of a
college education now,
but also because most of these things
are listed on ebay
for like a couple dollars each.
I could probably barely afford a
hamburger with my beanie baby net worth let alone a higher education.
Even the Princess
Diana bear,
which keeps getting listed for tens of thousands of dollars,
can be bought for a little more than 10 bucks.
"There's a lot of variations of
the bear there's a lot of things that
make it worth money
over another but the bottom line is from
what I've researched on them,
people that deal in these say that
no one princess bear should be worth more than about 130 dollars"
"my final grand total of its
worth:
approximately $16"
There are certainly a
few beanies
that are rare enough to earn you a
pretty penny, I'm not going to deny that,
but for the most part I've always felt
like this whole
"these will finance your schooling!" ideas
were one of the biggest
and virtually harmless lies my
generation fell for.
Except I was wrong, because some people
were harmed,
financially and sometimes physically.
After reading up on all this beanie baby info,
I also came across a few articles about the rampant beanie-related crimes and tragedies
taking place across the world.
There were instances of children being
trampled by eager shoppers
a smuggling ring across the us and Canadian border,
armed robberies, fist fights, price gouging, and forgeries to name a few.
But above all,
my favorite is about a heist of about
twenty thousand dollars worth of beanie
babies from a distribution van
in columbus ohio by a criminal simply
known
as the beanie baby bandit.
Which is a
moniker that is equal parts hilarious and adorable.
The suspect in custody, a 77
year old man, was later acquitted.
I tried looking up some more information to see if they later found the culprit,
but the most I could find were postings about Bandit the raccoon from the Beanie Boo line
and Bandit the dog
from the Beanie Balllllz line,
and a 2006 article about a different
incident
where families in an East Bay
neighborhood of San Francisco were
suddenly finding
beanie babies strewn across their yards.
So less of a "bandit" and more like a
freakish secret Santa.
This happened for weeks and the families
unsure of the reason and fearing a stalker
called the police, but it seems the bandit was too sneaky for them,
so they turned to using video surveillance. What was found
was footage of a seven-year-old cat named Gertie,
carrying beanie babies into the yard and leaving them there.
Which was probably the most delightful outcome in my opinion.
The cat was put on house arrest and the incident seemed to end,
but one question remained,
"Where was Gertie sourcing her beanie
babies?"
A neighbor and one time suspect himself, reportedly had a bag full of beanie babies on his property,
but he argued that the number found exceeded his collection
and still believed that a human was responsible.
Also supposedly finding a beanie baby on
his own property after Gertie was already in custody.
As far as I know, neither of the beanie baby bandits
have been definitively caught and could still be at large today.
Another cause of senseless beanie baby crime,
were instances of fist fights at
McDonald's.
So pretty par for the course.
"Your kids can get teeny beanie babies in a happy meal!
Real Ty beanie babies in a mini size, to toss, tuck or just plain love!"
They partnered with Ty in 1997 to bring the public "teeny beanie babies"
which were basically smaller versions of the full-sized ones, offered as happy meal toys.
Teeny beanies were brought back several times and collectors were eager to get their hands on more.
You'd think in a worst case
scenario the most anyone ever spent was
maybe a couple thousand dollars on
beanie babies,
but you would be wrong.
One of the most
cited examples, was Chris Robinson,
known for his role as Dr Webber in the
soap opera General Hospital.
He reportedly invested $100,000 in beanie babies
to one day resell to pay for his children's college education.
According to a 2015 New York post
article,
he still has over 20,000 beanie babies
in his home!
The family would recruit friends and
pretend not to know each other while
they stood in line to help them skirt
around buyer limits
and they would befriend shop owners to
gain inside information on availability
to build up their collection.
They would painstakingly catalog and store
and put protectors on hang tags of each plush
on the weekends to keep them in mint
condition.
His son later created a short
documentary on YouTube about their plight
called "bankrupt by beanies".
The video interviews members of the family and showcases boxes upon boxes of beanie babies.
The video ends
"I guess we'll see who's crazy in 20 years".
I generally hope that beanie babies come back,
if nothing but for that family's sake.
It seemed at the peak nothing could
quell the demand for beanie babies,
but the end was not far.
In early 1999, after announcing the retirement of several beanies, something unexpected happened...
nothing.
Typically when a retired beanie
baby was announced
there would be a rush on that particular
beanie and its value would jump up.
But surprisingly, after-market prices for
these particular styles stayed stagnant.
A bad sign.
Suddenly the web was inundated with panicked collectors
trying to sell off their stock and the market was flooded.
Everyone was selling but nobody seemed to be buying.
The beanie bubble had finally burst.
"But abruptly this week the makers of beanie babies, Ty Incorporated,
announced over the internet,
that it's over."
"What happened was the chat room actually got flooded..."
"Leonard Tannenbaum's Beanie Nation website
was overwhelmed with mournful messages like 'the end
is coming!'"
Ty inc announced on August 31st of that year
that all beanies would be retired indefinitely by December 31st.
After the initial panicked frenzy and
looking for answers from a notoriously
tight-lipped company
many turned to online chat rooms and
forums to speculate.
Some believed that Ty was simply planning
on rolling out a new line of toys in the new year,
others wondered if the company had been bought out or planned to cease operations entirely,
while others theorized that this was all
a ploy to drum up consumer interest.
The news blamed Pokemon...
okay.
As the millennium came to a close,
everything seemed uncertain
about what the future would bring.
I think most people were more worried
about y2k at the time,
but I was worried about
beanie babies!
Finally in February of 2000 Ty made
another announcement,
beanie babies were making a comeback due to popular demand!
To kick things off a new sparkly bear
was announced,
named the Beginning bear... get it?
This announcement was no doubt exciting to many collectors,
but was also confirmation to many others
that Ty had indeed performed a publicity stunt the year before just to pump up demand again.
For some, there was a sense of betrayal and distrust,
and although beanie babies continued to be produced,
sales never really recovered.
Aftermarket values eventually declined to more than 98% of their 90's value.
Ty Warner himself still seems to be doing pretty good financially, maintaining billionaire status!
He apparently bought the Four Seasons in New York in 1999
and is still involved in the hotel and toy business today.
He seemed to have run into a bit of trouble in 2014
for stashing 100 million dollars in an offshore Swiss bank account
and according to an article from Chicago Magazine,
the judge sentenced Warner to two years of probation,
500 hours of community service, and a $100,000 fine.
He's apparently quite the philanthropist donating tens of millions of foundations for underprivileged youth
and being associated with organizations such as the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation,
Children's Hunger Fund, and the American
Red Cross.
He also reportedly had a disdain for
scalpers and big time collectors that
made aftermarket prices soar
even suing a few and calling them "nuts".
Despite everything, it seems that Ty
Warner is sort of known for being a recluse
and rarely took part in interviews
despite the fact that he seems like a
person who enjoys being in the limelight.
There are quite a few photographs of him.
Most of my resources were pretty split
on him as a person,
some are pretty flattering biographies
on beanie baby fan sites
and others were articles about the beanie baby craze
that would pepper in statements from people that knew him saying things along the lines of,
"He had a bad attitude
problem!"
However you decide to view
Ty Warner is up to you.
Honestly the more I learn about him
the more I'm convinced he's a toy making
version of Willy Wonka,
so make of that what you will.
The company is still going strong with later releases
like the big-eyed, ootsie-cutesy beanie boos,
that really gained traction with children especially,
but the demand for them never really hit the same heights that beanie babies did.
I went to the website to see what was
available currently and
I love this Sven. I need him.
There's also a few other movies and tv shows that have some plush, like the avengers.
But for some reason, the only ones they have listed are the beanie balls kind,
which look adorable as animals,
but when the character is a buff
superhero-...
Like could you imagine being a bank robber,
you and the boys are pulling off your big heist,
and then suddenly this guy rolls up...
literally because he's a ball.
Anyways, I think beanie babies
are such a fascinating relic of the 90s
right up there with Furbies,
because they're fanatical collectors also included a lot of adults too.
Treating these cheap pellet-filled stuffed
toys like they were the most precious of diamonds.
I guess it's interesting because we're used to hearing this mentality passed around,
that once you become a certain age, toys aren't meant to be appealing and you need to grow up,
so when something comes around that people of any age seem to embrace wholeheartedly,
there's a kind of excitement and
sincerity there.
Especially for something as abundantly
available as plush.
Like you could get a stuffed bear
from any company, but you need to get the Garcia bear,
because it was just retired and you'll never be able to get it again!
I'm aware that there are plenty of adult collectors of toys,
whether for future profit, for their children,
a collection they started as children,
or just because they enjoy having them.
"I love them, and I'm obsessed"
Like with any fad,
there's bound to be negative aspects and
stories of worst case scenarios but there's also plenty of good that can come with it too.
Children loved them.
Beanie babies were a low ticket item,
when you bought them at retail let's not
talk about aftermarket.
So I'm sure a lot of children have fond
memories of being able to purchase them
with birthday money or allowances or
trading with each other
or just playing with them like children
are supposed to.
There's also a lot of nostalgia and
positive memories people always
associate with things that they were
passionate about.
Like taking the time to learn the names
and poems of the animals you liked
or deciding to wait in line for the next
big release
or starting a phone tree to find out
where they are.
There's almost more of a rush with the anticipation of getting something cool than actually having it,
which is probably a factor in why so many collectors were so eager to get beanie babies,
to jump on the Bean Wagon.
The thrill of starting a collection and
investing time and money
to track everything down
eventually is just fun.
...So I'm turning 28 this month.
I think in normal circumstances I would still be feeling a sense of nostalgia for the "simpler times" trademark.
But especially because I've been stuck inside since March,
I've been reminiscing about my childhood and looking through old boxes more and more,
digging up my old login information for Neopets and Gaia Online,
in a futile attempt to capture some of
that carefree whimsy.
It's more just made me realize that I
was really embarrassing as a kid.
I also found a couple old creative
writing notebooks and sketchbooks
but that's an ordeal for another time.
Eventually my focus shifted to my beanie babies and other
Ty brand products that I just couldn't bring myself to give away.
I have a fair number of Beanie Babies and a few Teeny Beanie Babies.
also some releases from later lines like the Beanie Boppers and the Attic Treasure Collection,
but i had never really considered myself much of a collector at the time,
I was just a child who liked stuffed animals and a lot of them happened to be beanie babies.
But looking at all these, yes, I was a collector.
At the time I would say most kids were.
I don't think i knew anyone who didn't have at least one or two at home.
I actually got at least half of these
as gifts or prizes,
so even if your parents didn't get one for you, a friend or relative probably would have,
and once the trend was on the decline they became incredibly easy to rack up.
But I'm not really here to just
talk about beanie babies,
I'm here to talk about the trading cards.
I was a trading card fanatic as a kid and
like most of them at the time
it was all about Pokemon,
but I also had a hefty collection of beanie baby cards!
And let me tell you, it was an obscure interest at least where i lived.
The cards ran from about 1998 to 1999
and were divvied up into four official series sets, though there were a few unofficial lines.
If everyone I knew had a beanie baby,
I would say out of them only two
collected the trading cards,
and they were sisters, and we would buy
them together.
We actually had our own little trading
group
where we would open our booster packs together and try to complete our own collections.
Granted, I'm sure plenty of others were buying and collecting them in town
but it very much felt like the three of us were the only ones.
There was only one place in town I knew
of that sold the cards and it was a
specific toy store.
We'd have a semi-regular routine of
going to the mall with our mothers,
sometimes to see a movie, other times to
just get a soft pretzel and walk around.
This particular mall had two toy stores.
One was KB Toys which was a pretty big national chain at the time
and featured this little pen in front of the entrance
that had electric barking dog toys and this rolly-polly ball that had a tail on it.
It always caught every child's attention
immediately.
This was the cool toy store that every
kid wanted to go into.
I think that particular location stayed
in business until I was in middle school.
The other toy store at the
mall was a smaller more quiet one
that I cannot for the life of me remember the name of.
I think it may have been a smaller chain or a locally owned store.
They had more board games than the like from what i can remember.
This was the store that had the beanie baby cards,
and my friends and i used to go in and get two to three packs each at about two bucks a pop.
Eventually the toy store closed and our
supply chain was cut off
so my dreams of completing the collection
went with it...
There's a whole bunch of listings on
eBay for beanie baby cards...
I didn't originally plan on buying these,
but i have no impulse control when it comes to collectibles.
So here I am, the consumer rube companies dream of,
so i might as well make some ad revenue from it.
There were listings for series one through four,
which you can also find
easily online as of this video.
But I just got series three and four
because they were the sets I grew up collecting
also they were cheaper.
An interesting thing about this box
is that supposedly there are 24 packs to a box,
but since this one came unsealed, I decided to count them all out to see if
I was cheated or something,
not that I would
bother contesting the sale
there wasn't a listed number of packs or any photos
aside from the display box.
Anyways, I counted them and they were
actually 31 packs,
meaning i got a bonus of...
seven packs!
Yes I knew the math, I was just trying to be funny.
I actually opened up one of the extras because again,
I have no impulse control
when it comes to collectibles.
and my first impression from opening up a pack
for the first time in about 20 years...
is dang these corners
are crisp!
I still have my old collection which I
keep in a binder along with my old Pokemon cards
and those six random
Neopets cards I have.
Every single corner is bent or worn down
from years of putting them in
and taking them out of the card
protectors.
Each card is also embossed, so it was
nice to feel a crisp new card that
hasn't been smooshed in a bookshelf for
decades.
I also completely forgot about the
sticker cards, which i guess i never hung on to,
but each pack comes with a sticker sheet and
a little fold out list of all the common
cards you can collect with the series,
so you can keep track of the cards you
still need.
The cards themselves are more or less
the same between the two releases.
Common cards show a photo of the beanie
in front of their own name,
a paw print with their style number in
the corner, the beanie babies logo,
and all of that's going to be on an
environment background of some sort.
There were seven in all: farm, meadow,
forest, mountain, arctic, wetlands, and aquatic.
the back featured the name and poem of some of the beanies as well as their birthday and issue date.
Card number, edition number, series number, the beanie baby club stamp, and a little factoid.
There was always one artist proof common card per pack that came with a little foil stamp in the corner.
I guess that made them worth more, but let's be honest,
it's not going to be worth that much anyways now.
So it's basically just a nice shiny
thing to look at.
Speaking of shiny things, they also
featured holographic foil cards in two types,
wild and birthday whose layouts were always a little bit different.
There were also some die cut cards.
The retired cards on series 3 had their own
special shape and foil embossing
I was never able to get my hands on one of
those as a kid.
The beanie buddies were two cards that
fit together. I have one half of Chilly.
And there are also a fair number of
other special cards we can go over if I come across any.
All in all, I have 108 cards, 90 common 8 special and 10 unofficial.
Now let's unbox 440 cards and see if i can finish my collection!
I don't know if you've noticed,
but um,
I'm twins with the patriotic chicken today...
Homeland.
So it took a couple hours,
but I was able to go through every single one of the packs and filled out my book.
Unfortunately I didn't get all of the common cards like I'd like...
There's about 20 some odd missing.
You'll notice I left
some empty spaces for them.
Who knows maybe I'll buy some more
sometime in the future, but not anytime soon.
So on the back of all the checklists, I noticed that there was a listing for the Platinum Membership Kit,
and I just had to go check online to see if there were
any for real cheap and i found one for 10 bucks.
All the proceeds went to
charity and I decided to also match the donation when I bought it.
Unfortunately it's not going to be here
in time for the video.
Maybe I'll open it during a live stream or just post a
little update video when it comes in
So in the series 4 box they included this
little lenticular postcard thing.
I ended up finding it pretty fascinating
and somewhat hilarious.
You'll notice that it's the Ty logo
which explodes violently revealing The End
bear.
I find this incredibly funny in retrospect i thought you'd appreciate it.
The series 4 sticker sheets are actually just one giant sticker
but they're glow in the dark and then on the back there's a little coloring page.
Series three sticker sheets have three separate beanie baby stickers
and then also the little logo one.
Each series has 21 separate styles that
you could get and I ended up getting one of each.
I think it's set up that you get the entire set per box,
so that's not really that surprising.
What was surprising was I ended up
getting three separate common classic cards.
The common cards in the earlier series looked like these.
The only thing that really differentiates them,
is that these ones have a little foil embossing that says common classic on them.
So I'd like to bring your attention to this specific card.
It's one of the series for birthday cards and if you'll notice this bear's birthday
is December 31st 1999.
Ty 2K, get it?
Get it?
Ty 2K!
his birthday is right before the new millennium.
Y2K! Ty 2K!
Unfortunately I wasn't able to complete any of the beanie buddy sets.
I ended up getting four halves. I got two sweethearts.
One thing that was interesting is that they're virtually the same
except for the name is red on this one and then blue on this one.
I noticed that there was a print issue between my Tusk and Swirly cards in this
set.
If you look on the back you'll notice
that they're both listed as card 144.
I didn't have a Swirly in my old card
sets but I did have a Tusk,
so I ended up comparing them
and it looks like that number isn't correct.
Tusk is actually listed as
150 in my old set,
so I 'm not sure which one is incorrect,
but clearly there was some sort of misprinting going on between these two cards.
I also noticed a print problem with my
two Iggy cards.
If you look at them from the front they
appear identical but if you flip them over
one's 200 and one's 201
and the 201 card is actually a different
environment from the other.
So I went ahead and checked my old cards
and I do have the one that's supposed to be a mountain background.
that's supposed to be Iggy with spine.
So does this make the cards more valuable?
I don't know, probably like a couple of cents. Who cares?
I also wanted to bring your attention to this card...
Nothing interesting about it,
it's just Sheets is a terrifying stuffed animal.
Who came up with this one?
So I didn't end up finishing the
collection...
Ah... sad.
but um...
You know, that's the fun part of collecting things, is I get to continue collecting beanie baby cards,
now that I know I can find them
pretty easily online.
So at least the dream doesn't end
with this video.
Speaking of this video,
typically I just stick to art and
characters and what I know,
but this one was pretty fun for me!
I like being passionate and sharing information about things I care about to others,
so if you liked the video, if you liked the format, let me know in the
comments.
Maybe I'll come up with some other interesting things that aren't necessarily art related
but that i could talk about for a while.
So yeah, what's your opinion?
Let me know in the comments and thanks for checking out this video!
It means a lot that you stuck around this long,
I mean, if you're- if you did...
I mean I guess if you didn't stick around, you probably wouldn't hear-
Patriotism Chicken says, "goodbye!"
It's like three in the morning, I'm
really tired...
do
I'm not sure if you guys noticed, but
there was an imposter in the mix!
I don't think this one's areal beanie baby...
