Forgotten Treasures of Americana: Beanie Babies

Let's relive the glory years of Beanie Babies on the latest edition of Forgotten Treasures of Americana.

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In our never ending quest to provide all of our readers with relatable, ‘slice of life’ style content, we here at the SoBros Network feel the time to weigh in on social commentary has officially come. It’s once again time for me, Big Natural, to open up the leather-bound parchment pages of the annals of history. Put on your plush robe, light your pipe, start a fire, and get ready for deep contemplation. This is the as-often-as-I-remember-to-write-it column: Forgotten Treasures of Americana. Today, we are going to be looking back at the incredible 1990s sensation, Beanie Babies.

I was recently out at the Phoenix Flea Market – not in Phoenix, Arizona…the one here in Old Hickory, Tennessee. Like…that’s the name of the establishment. It’s a great place to kill an entire afternoon while also feeling like you’ve hopped into a time machine, venturing throughout generations of Americana. You never know what you’re going to come across there. One of the things I noticed at several booths that I hadn’t thought about in awhile was the prevalence of Ty beanie babies. Man, that took me back.

Now, a lot of price tags read $18-$20, with one or two being marked as high as $35. Weird, I thought. I remembered the hysteria surrounding these things generating much higher prices, even as a kid. I went home and Googled it, and sure enough, I found that there are some worth thousands. The most valuable beanie baby on the planet is the Princess Bear, of which an original release comes with an estimated value of $500K. That’s absurd! For a beanie baby?!?! Y’all got too much money. I was thinking around $50K….not 10 times that. You learn something new every day, I guess.

My wife says she has a whole basement full of these things from her childhood days. I doubt there’s a Princess Bear sitting down there, and even if there is, I can’t imagine 30 years in a basement did it any good. Nonetheless, don’t rule out see me sitting at a table at a toy show somewhere peddling these damn things in the near future.

I can’t say that I ever fully understood why these things got so white hot back in the 90s. Then again, I’m a wrestling fan, so I’m aware of how certain things can be incredibly value to a niche group of people. I ought to just keep my mouth shut. They just seemed like…y’know….stuffed animals. I didn’t get the appeal.

As it turns out, it was all designed through a stroke of genius. Ty Warner, apparent psychological mastermind, decided that he would restrict the amount of beanie babies resellers could buy in a given month, and he “retired” certain beanie babies a little while after their release. It created a sense of urgency among buyers, and collectors started catching onto it pretty quickly. Before you knew it, people were hoarding these things, reselling them, and driving up the prices at a fever pitch. It reminds me a lot of what Funko Pops are these days. They don’t do a whole lot, but the people that make ’em limit releases to inflate value. Hell, any toymaker would be wise to at least try and pull this from the Ty playbook.

I was born in 1986, so I was still a kid when beanie babies first started hitting shelves in the early 1990s. But, from what my little baby brain retained from back then, I want to say that beanie babies were among the first things to “go viral,” if you will. During that time, I remember the beanie babies, Tickle Me Elmo, and Furby all being really hard to find. That was the heyday of people getting into fist fights over toys on Black Friday. I have no basis to say this and am confident that it’s just me glorifying my own childhood, but I don’t know if there’s been a golden era of toys quite like it ever since. They’re still making beanie babies today, but they’re nowhere near as popular as the days when people would throw down in Wal-Mart for ’em.

FORGOTTEN TREASURES OF AMERICANA ARCHIVES

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley

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