The Great Beanie Baby Bubble of the late 90s
The Great Beanie Baby Bubble of the late 90s. “In many ways, in fact, the Beanie Baby mania was the dot-com stock bubble writ small.”
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Reader comments
ChrisAug 26, 2004 at 2:36PM
We made a few thousand one summer in the Beanie resale market. My wife made friends with Hallmark clerks via email, and they would send her a few of everything anytime they got a shipment in, which she then would sell on the web bulletin boards for $20 each, and more. (this was pre-ebay) I remember her shipping a huge box of the silly things to somebody after we got a certified check for near $1000. It was nuts.
John FrostAug 26, 2004 at 3:49PM
The Disney Company produced a line as well there were just as collectible as the Ty beanies.
We got started a little late in the craze and were caught with about 100 of these plush that
we can't sell for even a few bucks. I'm waiting for the craze to come back... it will right? :)
ChrisAug 26, 2004 at 3:55PM
That reminds me - a friend back then had the idea to do Meanie Babies - vile, disgusting renditions of Beanie babies - things like roadkill cat, deformed puppies, etc. They manged to sell several productions runs worth of the stuff - didn't make him rich - but they did profit on the effort.
Andrew E.Aug 26, 2004 at 7:07PM
That reminds me - a friend back then had the idea to do Meanie Babies - vile, disgusting renditions of Beanie babies
Kinda like "Garbage Pail Kids" ? Man...trends really are circular.
edieAug 26, 2004 at 8:56PM
I think the most ridiculous thing about this whole phenom was that kids never actually got to play with the Beanies, unless their parents were oblivious to the whole collector craze. And the WERE pretty cute and pleasingly tactile. At least now if you find any in the attic, you can cut off the damn tags already and give them to small people who'll drool all over them and try to feed them oatmeal.
JohnAug 26, 2004 at 9:12PM
This is funny. I just met the guy today who invented the little slip on tag covers to protect the tags. Seems he made a pretty penny.
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.