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A Beanie Baby is a small stuffed animal made by Ty, Inc. more...

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, owned and founded by Ty Warner who promoted the line in up-scale stores (and miniatures in McDonald's) and with intentional scarcity, under-filled with plastic pellets, or "beans," giving it a flexible and vulnerable, huggable, feel, rather than stuffing (see PVC). A Beanie Baby is a type of bean bag in the form of a stuffed animal toy.

History

The original Beanie Babies were made by Ty Warner through his company Ty Inc. Ty claimed rightful ownership of the name and of all of the designs of their various "beanies." Other companies marketed imitation beanbag-stuffed animals, as well as parodies such as the "Meanie Babies".

The official Beanie Babies were mostly in the shape of animals and were usually brightly colored. Each Baby came with his or her own name, a birthdate, and a bit of humorous poetry. For example, the poem of Bongo is:

Bango the monkey lives in a tree

He's the happiest monkey you'll ever see

In his spare time he plays the guitar

One of these days he will be a big star!

This information was all contained on a red, heart-shaped hang tag usually affixed to the animal's ear. The condition of the hang tag is one of the main factors in determining a Beanie Baby's value, and hard plastic covers molded in a heart shape are available for its protection.

Intended as children's toys, they became a popular adult gift item. Beanie Babies are a kitsch cubicle decoration. Hundreds of different Beanie Babies were created, often resorting to more obscure animals such as anteaters, nutria, or chameleons in the process. One popular "series" within the Beanie Baby menagerie was the use of teddy bear-shaped Beanies (called new-faced teddies), the basic pattern of which was repeatedly re-used, but with different colors and names. The bear model was frequently used for commemorative purposes, and special bears such as a Fourth of July model and even a Diana, Princess of Wales commemorative were created. Recently there have been Beanie Babies based popular licensed properties including SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora the Explorer, and Garfield.

Fad

Starting in late 1996, a faddish craze of collecting Beanie Babies began. The craze lasted to around the year 1999. In a buying frenzy reminiscent of the Cabbage Patch Kid mania of the early 1980s, several speculators purchased these collectibles en masse in hopes of making a fortune years later from being able to sell rare specimens. Ty systematically retired various designs. However, much like the Cabbage Patch Kid fad, so many people believed that purchasing large numbers of these collectibles was a good investment, that very few people profited from the craze. Like tulip mania, this was a toy-sized example of an economic bubble.

Read more at Wikipedia.org