Day 112: Why did we think that Beanie Babies were going to be worth a butt-load of money?

I didn’t collect the actual Beanie Babies. I had a few. I knew people that had dozens. It was a crazy craze that came out of nowhere. They were attractive. They were soft and had beads in them that offered another layer to the aesthetic appeal. They were animals. They all had names, which I found to be annoying because I wanted to name my own damn Beanie Baby. I even tore the tag off of one of them. A bold move in those days because we thought that they were going to be worth thousands of dollars in the future. Like rare coins, we scrounged around everywhere for new ones, unique ones, and the ones from McDonald's

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A friend at school told me that she got all of the ones that McDonald's was selling from a store in Saginaw. Through miscommunication, I thought that she found all of them at one store. I have the best mom in the world because she drove me to all the stores in Saginaw looking for THE STORE that sold all the Beanie Babies. None of them were. Per usual at the time, each store had a couple that they were giving away at that time. And stubborn young me wouldn’t listen to my mom when she suggested that the girl from school probably just found all of them by collecting a couple from each store. Nope. I refused to believe it. In the end, my sister and I got dinner from McDonald's and I got the small gecko. I already had the big one, so it was a good match. But I rode home disappointed that I did not find the coveted store and wished I would have taken my mom’s advice and gathered them as we went store to store.

It was a weird obsession that I’m glad died. And everyone thought they were going to be collector’s items and be worth a lot of money ten to twenty years down the road. Sure, there are few that are selling for several thousand dollars. But collector items are only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Who the hell is going to pay $135,000 for a “Princess Diana” purple bear? Here’s the link. I’d love to see it sell.

But I am guessing that those avid collectors are kicking themselves a little bit now. Their mass collection of soft toys are not going to pay for their retirement in the Florida Keys. And they wasted hundreds of dollars on, essentially, stuffed animals that will probably sell for a buck at a garage sale. I still don’t understand how the money rumor got around. We didn’t even have the Internet like we do now.

I think the creators of Pokemon found a niche during that era. Beanie Babies came out in 1993 and three years later the world was introduced to Pikachu. And Charizard and Squirtle and Eevee and Weedle and Pidgey and Rattata and Jigglypuff and you get the idea. Whether or not it was intentional, Pokemon capitalize on a world that was obsessed with collecting things. “Gotta catch ‘em all!” It was brilliant. And Pokemon had way more personality than Beanie Babies. Kudos to them.

It’s a funny conversation to have every once in a while. To laugh at our foolishness. Our weird obsession with those soft fucks. Don’t worry, though: I still have mine. And I won’t sell them. Because one day I will be able to hand my granddaughter that purple gecko and tell her, “You’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

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Image by Ogutier from Pixabay