Beanie baby price spike real or not

[Makar | 1,946]

Anyone else seeing the price spike lately?

Apparently a lot of old beanie babies are selling for $1000+

But when you look on eBay, prices are all over the place. Are these beanie babies actually valuable? Or is this a fakenews article?

I have like 8 of the ones in that list. I could use an extra $10k lol

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/573674/most-valuable-beanie-babies

[docile tapeworm | 4,198]

I always wonder if I should buy them

at yard sales.

[SuperJimtendo | 1,121]

*checks old storage bin.* man I.dunno if I'll go through the effort but my family has a bunch of those things put away 

Edited December 8, 2019 by SuperJimtendo

[Teh_Lurv | 254]

This is going to turn out to be one of those "Black DIamond Disney VHS" fake hype stories.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

The only accurate one on that list is Peanut the Royal Blue elephant.    

The ones that were super expensive before the market flood/spike/etc are still the ones holding value (the dinosaurs, Royal Blue Peanut, the original bumblebee, the original spider)

[a3quit4s | 4,097]

So I looked in this a few weeks ago when my wife brought back a tote full of these damn things from her parents house. @captmorgandrinker is correct about peanut and the other auctions that had rando ones selling for crazy amounts of money seemed highly suspicious on eBay. Really what it looked like was the sellers were buying them from themselves to hype the value and then sell them again. Most of the value from beanie babies now are from printing errors on the tags and not really the beanie babies themselves. 

Im not a beanie baby expert though so post them up for sale anyways what’s the worst that happens they don’t sell? I ended up just sticking them back in the tote and she had a couple that were on the list you found as well. 

Edited December 8, 2019 by a3quit4s

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

I cut my dirty reseller teeth on Beanie Babies in college (there was a mall in a podunk town nearby that had a bunch of the retired ones).

Every other one on that list ranges from common to dirt common, especially the McDonald's International ones.   As @a3quit4s mentioned, printing errors will still go for a decent amount, but that doesn't really matter which one they're on.

I still like my Tabasco the bull though.

 

[Makar | 1,946]

57 minutes ago, Teh_Lurv said:

This is going to turn out to be one of those "Black DIamond Disney VHS" fake hype stories.

I think you're probably right but heck if someone wants to pay me a grand or more for my curly, Erin, spangle, the end, hope, or the others ones I have, they're yours lol. eBay's prices are nuts right now. I'm seeing some listed for 10k

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ty-Curly-Beanie-Baby-Retired-with-Errors/254446717515?hash=item3b3e34ca4b:g:X1gAAOSwWy5d3DAd

Edited December 8, 2019 by Makar

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

I just looked at prices for the stuff I was getting $50-100 bucks for in 1998 and had a hearty laugh.

 

[a3quit4s | 4,097]

I got a whole tub of the little bastards if anyone wants to trade me NES or N64 games for them!

[empire | 106]

GoCollect should go after Beanies and leave games alone.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

3 minutes ago, empire said:

GoCollect should go after Beanies and leave games alone.

If memory serves, you have Beanies to thank for eBay being in existence.

[DarkTone | 984]

11 hours ago, Teh_Lurv said:

This is going to turn out to be one of those "Black DIamond Disney VHS" fake hype stories.

Never heard of this. What is it?

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

Our first Beanie Baby discussion? Has VGS already jumped the shark?

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

It only takes a couple of mentally ill people in a bidding war, so anything is possible.

But I think someone shilling to play to current online media propensity to write top 10 articles about valuable eBay sales is more likely.

 

[Tulpa | 3,492]

1 hour ago, DarkTone said:

Never heard of this. What is it?

When Disney started releasing their animated features on VHS tapes in the mid-80s through the mid-90s, there was a black diamond logo that said "The Classics" on the spine of the clamshell case. Those earned the name Black Diamond tapes.

A few years ago, a number of email chains and clickbait articles started "reporting" that they were going for thousands of dollars on eBay, that they were super rare and desirable, etc. While people were listing them for thousands, no one was buying them. They're not particularly rare by any reasonable metric. Disney printed a ton of them.

But the hype machine and Disney's own marketing such as the Disney Vault spread the rumor that these were must have collectables.

[Rooster | 124]

How did Beanie Baby speculation begin?  I remember even hearing my aunts and uncles talking about the different bears, and all kinds of crazy stuff "Erin bear is worth $80" and things like that.

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

1 hour ago, Rooster said:

How did Beanie Baby speculation begin?  I remember even hearing my aunts and uncles talking about the different bears, and all kinds of crazy stuff "Erin bear is worth $80" and things like that.

Like recently or back in the 90s?

Way back in the 90s, I had heard about it from my buddy at college telling me from some online forums he found?  Or maybe from somebody in one of his classes?  He told me the whole story and I half paid attention; main reason he was telling me was he wanted to go to the mall that was about a half hour away, and I had a vehicle.

So off we went (can't remember the exact year, maybe early 1997?  It was right when Sting the Manta Ray was retired).   He buys 8 Stings and I snag one for myself and cool looking frog.   His plan was to sell these for $15 each (that's also when Priority Mail was 2 days/2 pounds/2 bucks) online.   

He calls me the next day to find out when my next mall trip is, as he's already sold out.    I bought about $100 worth of retired various ones, sold them for about $300, then it was on from there.

McDonald's Teeny Beanies, the next retirement wave, $15-20 each turned into $50 then $100 then almost $200 for a few.

Then they flooded the market, the bubble burst, the end.   Ironically, they released a beanie called "The End" right about when the market tanked.

[Estil | 1,264]

I honestly thought they were a joke right from the start.  I think there was even a Judge Judy case/episode about them in IIRC.  Look if you're going to get into a hobby do it because it's fun and you like the challenge of building the best collection you can that reflects you and your personality.  And isn't it interesting that most things that are expected to "be worth something someday" usually don't pan out while the things that DO become valuable are the kinds of things people don't expect to "be worth something someday"?

[DarkTone | 984]

I watched a video on this a while back. Worth checking out, covers a lot. 

Simply put, the owners replaced the term "out of stock" with "vaulted", which made collectors want them more. Funko do the same thing, driving up both the hype and value. 

[acromite53 | 337]

I collected and played with beanie babies as a young kid. I used to love searching through huge bins at Goodwill. That was the first collecting spark for me. Now I know why I had so much luck. This was a few years after the bubble burst! Good thing they were dirt cheap. And I had a whole lot more fun playing with them then speculators did 

I had this book as well. I liked flipping through it. 

Edited December 11, 2019 by acromite53

[acromite53 | 337]

Beanie, video game, WATA, and comic collecting is all for chumps. Webkinz is where its at. Get in while its cheap! I've already got a head start!!!!1!!!1!!

[RH | 4,903]

Protip.  It's true for every collector market.

If it's designed to be "collectible", it's a poor long term investment. Whether it's Beanie Babies, video games, ball cards or comics.  They only stuff that holds real value is the stuff that no one ever planned to collect.  That doesn't mean if a collector's market forms around something, the speculative market has sailed but even with things like comic books or games, the stuff coming out today that will be worth a lot of money will be the beginning of beloved franchises that might be mostly overlooked for their first games, or in comic, the introduction to new characters who might end up becoming a big deal and getting their own movies in 10-20 years.  The same principle applies. No one is thinking to collect that stuff, so people will want it 10-20 years from now but the supply will be scarce.

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

On 12/7/2019 at 11:17 PM, captmorgandrinker said:

If memory serves, you have Beanies to thank for eBay being in existence.

I just read a book on Beanie Babies. Apparently in the mid/late 90s Beanie Babies was 10% of total Ebay traffic. Absolute bananas.

I kind of like Beanie Babies. I don't understand the fake market, I know none of them are worth $10,000s, but you can get a Princess Bear or whatever for $5 and there are BINs on Ebay for $100,000 for no reason, I think it's novel to own as a fake collectible!

[phart010 | 1,707]

I wonder if there are any beanie baby grading companies? Maybe we should start buying up all the rares and then hiking the prices up