Beanie babies

[tofre8915]

I have 3 Beanie Babies from 1996  "tuffy" the dog, "early" the bird and "Hoppity" the bunny. The tags have some errors on them and online similar ones are going for thousands and I'm trying to find out if that's the actual price. Idk anything about them myself and i fund these

[kensgiftshop]

New sellers think they hit the jack pot with Beanie Babies and list them for crazy amounts.

But, they are only worth a few dollars, if that.

As far as the errors on the tags, they all have have errors.

[1786davycrockett]

@tofre8915 

Items which were manufactured in amounts over 100,000 will never be considered "rare", until over 99.99% them have been destroyed.

In addition, Beanie Babies were deliberately promoted as "instant collectibles" by Ty Warner, as a means to con gullible and unsuspecting buyers that his cheaply-made stuffed toys would have investment value.

Big reveal:  Beanie Babies have NO value, because TOO MANY were manufactured.

He made millions of dollars hoodwinking his customers, and became one of the richest individuals in the United States.

The "rare" Beanie Babies were actually oversold inventory which retailers no longer wanted on their shelves; so Ty Warner came up with the marketing campaign that those particular Beanie Babies were going to be "retired."

Result?  Beanie "investors" rushed to gobble up all those "retired" stuffed toys, under the mistaken belief that anything being "retired" must eventually mean "rare."

No -- it simply meant that Ty Warner didn't have to pay retailers for returned merchandise -- the Beanie "investors" paid the retailers, and Ty Warner never had to pay a cent in return fees.

Don't believe me?  Check out this article from the History Channel --

https://www.history.com/news/how-the-beanie-baby-craze-came-to-a-crashing-end

[soh.maryl]

Others have pretty clearly replied to you about Beanie Babies, so I don't have much to add.  

As a grandma who babysits, have purchased quite a few toys at thrift stores to stock my overflowing toy chest.  One local store that I frequent has several bins of "stuffies".  Small ones start at a dollar, medium are a little more and huge ones are more than that; however, when the bins start to overflow, management offers small (which Beanies are) for 3/$1.  Regardless of their names, have bought at least one of each of the ones you mention and also have 3 Princess Diana ones that are often listed on eBay for thousands.  Who buys those?