Loves history, gardens, travel, and words in general. AKA LovesTravel on dooyoo.
Loves history, gardens, travel, and words in general. AKA LovesTravel on dooyoo.
Member since:06.04.2003
Reviews:80
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I am a collector of beautiful things. For example, I collect Native American pottery from the pueblo tribes of the American Southwest. I collect spirit fetishes (small stone carvings of animals), also a Native American art form. In addition, I collect silly glass and ceramic coin banks. I collect books almost by osmosis. I even have a small collection of hedgehog-related objects, inspired by my fondness for Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, the Beatrix Potter character. But for all my propendency to collect, trust me on this, I never sought or thought to acquire a collection of Ty Beanie Babies--or Ty creatures of any sort. At least, I wouldn't have done so if left to my own devices.
Mind you, I've been known to buy the occasional Beanie for one or another child in our lives. Ty toys are cute and cuddly, good companions for little ones. I've always liked the Ty variety of offerings, one that allowed me to match up Ty creatures with each child's likes and dislikes. Still, I went for years without knowing (or caring) about release dates, exclusive releases, or retired issues. For me, they were toys, not investments.
Then my sister and her family started collecting Beanies. If you know a serious Ty collector, then you know the meaning of passion. My sister
and I live hundreds of miles apart, yet I've spent hours on the phone listening to the latest news from Beanie Land. I was asked from time to time to look for this or that Beanie. My then-8-year-old niece could cite chapter and verse of a particular Beanie's value. The extended family, reaching across the continent, was mobilized for the acquisition of McDonalds' Teeny Beanies. My sister and her family attended Ty conventions where vendors and collectors bought, sold, and traded Beanies on a massive scale. As a result of these activities, I leaned secondhand about hang tags, tush tags, tag protectors, special copyrighted fabrics, and counterfeit Beanies. It all somehow seemed a strange and perilous world.
Having Ty collectors in the family has brought strange twists into our lives in other ways. When Sis and her family visit, we make all the Beanie rounds. I don't normally keep up these things, but by the time they return home, I've learned which Ty dealerships have retained their franchise and which have not. I have an update on where the secondary market vendors can be found and how their prices compare. And of course, I have an intensive refresher course on what's new, what's valuable, and the overall state of the Beanie market. I have to acknowledge that during their visits, I often notice a temporary mania growing inside me, one that threatens to fuel me to their frenzy. So far, at least, my brushes with this particular addiction have been relatively minor.
Nonetheless, the Ty phenomenon has left an indelible mark on my life and my marriage. During our trip to the England and Scotland in the fall of 1998, Himself and I were beseeched to search for a Britannia Bear, then an exclusive release available only in the UK. Looking for the red-and-white Ty heart thus became a standard part of our routine during our holiday wanderings. Although my brother-in-law had authorized me to go as high as £75 for the coveted Britannia, I found nothing for less than £100. Thinking that it wasn't sensible to spend so much for a $5 toy, I decided to forgo this find--it later became clear that I failed to grasp fully the gravity and the economics of scarcity.
Feeling a bit inadequate as a result of my unsuccessful pursuit for the Britannia Beanie, a few months later I enlisted the aid of a good friend in Troon to procure the Britannia Buddy--an acquisition my niece desperately desired. My friend's success in locating this longed-for piece of fake fur was reciprocated by my brother-in-law, who shipped off a bundle of U.S. exclusives to her children in Scotland. (Who says world peace isn't born at the grass-roots level?)
Last year when my sister and I took our mother to England, the search for Beanies was still in high gear. The exclusive England, Scotland, and Wales Bears were out, and Sis was determined to come home with at least one of each. We could go nowhere without Sis's internal Beanie radar serving as a locator beacon for Ty franchise holders and secondary vendors. By the time we returned home, I had spent £15 for an England Bear--pretty much my top limit for a piece of bead-filled cloth. Sis, on the other hand, had all three coveted bears, including multiples of England, and she had several other Beanies that were either difficult to find at home or were available in slightly modified form (for example, the "Mum" Bear for Mother's Day, as compared to the "Mom" Bear here in the States). In all, she spent well over £300 on Beanies.
It seems almost inevitable that my personal Beanie collection came about as part of the spillover effect from my sister's family passion. Early on, when asked if there were a Beanie I might like to have, I acknowledged that maybe a Peace Bear would be nice--its tie-dyed fabric reminded me of my misspent youth. When the eldest of my three cats died, my sister and her family decided to start me off on a collection of Ty kitties. Soon I had dozens of the charming little creatures--cats and bears, birds and butterflies, fish and (darn I say it?) game. As demonstrated by my purchase of the England Bear, I even bought a few for myself, though on a very helter-skelter, nonorganized basis.
My grandchildren too have a joint collection--some bought by me, some by my sister and her family, and some acquired through a variety of other channels. My daughter doesn't quite know what to do with all these wee creatures. She moans about where to keep them and jokes half-heartedly about the Beanie trove being part of the children's investment portfolio--that, and the contents of their piggy banks.
As the Beanie phenomenon has waned, even my sister and her family have pulled back from their previous zealotry. We are, the lot of us, left with an overabundance of cute toys, all with hang tags and tush tags neatly in place and protected. And as the value of our investment has declined, we are all a bit poorer in terms of both cash and assets. Still, one must grant that this commercial phenomenon did more than make Ty richer. It was, relatively speaking, an innocent addiction that brought parents and children, distant relations, and even total strangers together in pursuit of something that was and is essentially joyful. If there are better ways to spend time and money, there are also certainly worse.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
i have a few as part of my cuddle fish/oceanic/aquatic creatures collection and am so glad i avoided the craze, my sister has over 200 hundred of them and doesnt know what to do with them any more,
mouette 16.12.2003 14:08
£300! Now that is an addiction. Nick
incoginto 18.05.2003 22:32
on a trip to our gps he gave my two children two beanies a peacock and another thing I forget what (they may be valuble?)
Advantages: Beanie babies are affordable, small, understuffed, bean filled toys that are enjoyed by children and adults as a toy and/or collectible, that can bring great pleasure to the receiver. Disadvantages: Collecting can become addicting, but is that really so bad?
alcan 08.04.2001 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Beanie Babies
Apr 13th, 2003
(Apr 14th, 2003)
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