Beanie Mania (2021)

[bunniefuu]

The collector's mentality is
that you can never have enough.

And that's very dangerous.

Oh, my God,
this is unbelievable!

It became just an obsession.

What do
you think about grown-ups

jumping out of their
car to get a Beanie Baby?

Insane.

Perhaps the biggest
toy craze in history.

Bigger than
Frank Sinatra, the Beatles

and Elvis Presley combined.

I would've paid whatever it took

to get that Beanie Baby
at the time.

$ , .

Without the few women

that started the entire mania,

Beanie Babies
never would've been.

Just moms getting together
and creating something.

We didn't get along,

there was a lot of competition,
you know.

If you don't have a number,
you're not gonna be let in.

They would just lunge and grab.

The Beanie Baby craze
is reaching insane proportions.

Ty Warner did absolutely
no advertising.

It was almost as if there
was no guy behind them.

Have either one
of you ever met Ty Warner?

- Never.
- No.

Like the Wizard of Oz.

Can we come in here and talk
about the Beanie Babies?

No.

It was a really nice
thing for a while,

until the adults ruined it.

Today that $
investment we are told

would be worth about $ , .

I'm happy. I'm going to get
a lot of money now.

There was no evidence
that they would ever

be worth anything,
we just believed it.

Something happened with
Beanie Babies,

that's all everybody wants.

They are magical,
and you get addicted.

I never was
addicted to anything,

and I got addicted
to Beanie Babies.

And I ran amok.

Hi, I'm Mary Beth Sobolewski.

Hi, I'm Becky Phillips.

Hi, I'm Joni Hirsch-Blackman.

Naperville is a town about
miles west of Chicago.

Very child-friendly,

we won every 'greatest place to
raise your child' type of awards

over the years.

Ha! Colorado Court.

People in the neighbourhood
would say,

"Oh, you live on Colorado Court,
you guys have a lot of fun."

Hi, how you doing?
Glad to see ya.

Becky Phillips just lives
a few doors down from here.

Before Beanie Babies, I was
a language-arts teacher.

Once I had children,
I stopped teaching.

So I was a full-time mom.

But I'm very competitive.
I come from a family of .

But I get involved
with something,

I want to go % in.

I worked for IBM
for about years.

I was a systems engineer.

And I loved it.

But then I turned it all in
to be a full-time mom.

I've been working from home
almost from the very beginning.

I was carpooling three
children. A lot of sweat suits.

Big hair. In the early ' s,
I had a perm.

I was a journalist
for 'People Magazine'.

I spent a lot of time with my
kids. It was a great time.

It was a lot of fun.

I think of the ' s
as sort of frivolous.

Socker Boppers! Socker Boppers!

You can sock all day
and bop all night...

I think it was a very quiet,
non-tumultuous time

preceding / .

It just seemed like a very quiet

time in our world

where people were happy.

We enjoyed collecting.

Especially in
the Chicagoland area.

Each of my kids
started collecting things early.

One of them collected baseballs.

One of my daughters

even collected
unsharpened pencils.

So we collect, we collect.
It was fun.

The first Beanie Baby
I ever saw was the lobster.

A Beanie Baby is
a small stuffed animal

that fits
in the palm of your hand.

It's very poseable,
so you could sit it,

you can fix the arms
a little bit.

It has very expressive eyes.

You almost feel like the
Beanie Baby is a little person.

It has a personality.

The Beanie Babies have a hanging
tag on them that say 'Ty'.

Now, I didn't know what
exactly that meant.

I didn't know at the time that
there was one guy

and that his name was Ty.

Ty Warner, I like to say
is like the Wizard of Oz.

Ty Warner is a real character.

There were always
rumours about him.

Not many people knew
Ty Warner the person.

Including me.

Deep down, he's very insecure.

That's why he's so private.

Ty Warner is a young man
whose father worked for me,

as a salesman.

And then Ty began selling our
toys after his father retired.

He got his training with us
at our company, Dakin Toys.

And became our
number-one salesman.

We were doing over $ million.

He had a big ego, and that
was all part of his thing.

I still beat him on the tennis
courts.

He left us
and went out on his own.

He hit the market at a time

when collectibles were in vogue.

The best advice
I gave him was to

come up with a good name,

and make a quality product.

And market the devil out of it.
And that's what he did.

Ty Products were a
small manufacturing company.

It wasn't huge, that's for sure

but Ty Warner had an air
of success.

And a confidence that he was
going to be more successful.

Our family owned a small
manufacturing company

in Canada that was
in the gift trade,

and wanted to go and look

for some lines that we could
possibly distribute.

I used to travel down to Chicago

where Ty's head office was.

And he would show me the new
products he was developing,

and he passed me
this little green frog.

He said "Bill, you are gonna
put every dollar you have"

"into that product."

I needed about $ , to
really get this off the ground.

You know, for a -year-old,
that was a lot of money.

But I thought, "I gotta do this"

"because if I don't do this,
someone else is going to do it."

The office was small in
the very beginning.

And I was employee number .

And I remember I was because

everybody used to say
"You're the th employee!"

And it was, like, exciting.

My parents immigrated
here from India in .

They wanted me to be a doctor.

The stereotypical
sort of profession.

But I couldn't stand blood.

So I started at Ty.

My job was a telemarketer and
when I walked in,

I remember I was looking around

and saw all the stuffed animals
and I was just thinking,

"This is so cool,
this is a toy company!"

So we had the first nine
prototypes

and they didn't have a name

and there were a lot of
different names bouncing around.

And then somebody
said 'Beanie Babies'.

And everyone was like
"Oh! That's it."

Legs, Chocolate, Pinchers,

Patti, Flash, Squealer,
Splash, Spot and Cubbie.

In the early days,
Ty went to the stores himself.

He always drove
a very unusual car.

And often would drive around
with a full-length fur coat.

And a top hat...

to intrigue people

into allowing him in
to show his products.

He's unusual-looking,
I would say.

He reminded me of Willy Wonka.

Ty Warner never
sold to the big stores,

no Wal-Marts, no Kmarts
or anything like that.

We think he's making a mistake.
We're America's toy store.

Why not have your product
in our stores?

It was a big thing for him - 'do
not sell to the majors' -

the reason being is they will
take your product

and they will put it on sale,

and they'll destroy the market
for the little guys.

Ty was all about
the small retailers.

He loved the small retailers.

He found them to be very, very
faithful to him

and we found the same.

The Beanie Babies,
initially, they were not moving.

It was very difficult to get
retailers to take that plunge

to even try Beanie Babies.

Taking a look at the holiday
season's hottest toys.

What's THE hottest toy
this year?

Probably Tickle Me Elmo
and Nintendo .

So then I was sort of thinking,

"What would make a consumer
walk into a store,"

look at this wall of plush and
choose this particular piece?

And I was thinking that there
needs to be a way

where it connects to people.

The thought just randomly
popped into my head

that we should do poems,
that would be kind of cute.

So immediately upon
getting the thought,

I just walked into Ty's office

'cause Ty happened to be there

and I told him,
I said "I have this idea."

So he said, "You think you could
write one for all of them?"

"And can you fax me
the poems in hours?"

There was, like,
or so at the time -

, I think,
that I had to write.

My sister, she's
a visionary woman.

She's ambitious, she has the
ability to think really big.

And to actually make it happen.

Oh, my God. Look at
that... That is so old.

This area is where we wrote
most of the poems.

Right.

"Legs lives in a hollow log.

"Legs likes to play leapfrog.

"If you like to hang out
at the lake"

"Legs will be the one friend
you'll make."

I didn't read it right.
I didn't read it very well.

Bongo's a monkey
that lived 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's gonna be a big star."

It was a toy to play with.
To pretend with.

My daughter was buying one
a week with her allowance money.

You came to notice them
in the Chicago area,

you started to seek them out,

seek more places,
seek more variations.

You know, it started
with my daughter Michelle.

Michelle got excited about it
so I got excited about it.

I told my mom about it,

said "Hey, I'd really like
to collect some of these."

"Can you help me out?"

I have such good memories of
her and I together

racing around looking
for the newer Beanie Babies,

the rarer Beanie Babies.

If there was one
that you wanted,

you had to go look for them

and there was not an easy way
to look for them

'cause they were only
in small stores.

So you had to just sort
of drive around.

So it was like being on
a perennial scavenger hunt.

Ty was not giving us any
information whatsoever.

It was a blank slate.

We had no idea
what was available,

how many were available,
when they were produced,

we had to find this
all out on our own.

What we did was we would take
every Beanie,

list the dates
that they were introduced.

So this is our first attempt

at putting our beanie
chronology together.

After a while,
though, we started saying,

"Well, there must be a finite
number of these things."

And having that
collector's mentality,

you wanted to check them off
a list and have all of them.

From there on, it became
a multiple trip, do what we can,

keep going until you were tired,

until there were no other
stores in the area

that might have what
we're looking for.

And then my mom took
that to an extreme

and it quickly became
her thing over mine.

I am afraid to say that I was

actually the one
that got so intense

and then it became
almost an obsession.

This is how this
collecting craze happened.

It happened by accident.

By parents, mothers, basically

collecting these
for their children.

I am Peggy Gallagher.
I am from the Chicago area.

I have been a Beanie Baby
collector for many, many years.

Since day one.

Paula, who was my younger sister
and a physician at the time,

she found them in
the hospital gift shop.

She opened the bag
and I go, "Oh!"

"Well, I want that one, and that
one, and that one."

Totally love at first sight.

I thought they were the cutest
things that were ever created.

And the names, I love the names.

And I just would giggle.
I mean, I STILL giggle.

They are cute.

No. I have stepchildren.

They were not.

No, they were not.

Peggy Toy, how are you?

I'm here to go shopping
for Beanie Babies.

Did you bring the cash?

When I started collecting
the Beanie Babies,

I had just
recently gotten married.

I was hiding them
because I thought

my new husband's
gonna think I'm crazy

buying these
little stuffed toys.

So I'd hide them upstairs
in that office.

And then finally,

I told him about this collection
that I'd been hiding

and I showed him
and he couldn't believe it.

He just said, "Do you collect
all these toys all the time?"

I was like a normal person.

And here I am not acting normal.

He was a little shocked.

He was a Porsche person

so he kept collecting cars
and Mercedes,

so he had to be a little
empathetic because his toys

were a lot more
expensive than mine.

It was evident very early that
you couldn't get

all the Beanie Babies

by just going to different
stores in your local area.

So then started another phase
of my collecting

which was going outside
of your state

to find the ones
you didn't yet have

that you really needed, right?

We called Ty
and they gave us some stores

that they were available in.

And so we started
calling those stores

and then what we would do

is say, "OK, do you know any
other gift shops in your area?"

You're gonna
have to wait for a second, OK?

Then we called
the Chamber of Commerce

in those cities, and they would
tell us all the gift shops.

We called every shop
over the United States.

Our phone bills for one month
were almost $ .

So now you're creating a market

innocently by women calling
all over the United States.

I wasn't the only one.

You got Becky from Naperville,

buying Beanie Babies,
paying with a credit card,

shipping them all.

Mary Beth Sobolewski.
She was one.

Gift shop owners,
they would even say to me,

"There's these women in
Naperville..." I said, "Becky?"

And they knew the names,
they go "Oh, yes",

"we just ran her credit card."

"and I thought, they cleaned me
out before I got to them."

I never felt like
there was a competition

between the other collectors.

No, it was plenty of room
for everybody.

We didn't get along, there was
a lot of competition, you know?

And women are the worst.

I'd deal with men any time,
women and... Oh, my gosh.

Yeah, there was competition.

One of the real sleepers
in the industry this year,

these cute little animals
called the Beanie Babies

from an unknown company
called Ty Toys.

It was going here in Chicago,

but it hadn't really hit
nationally as much yet.

We had about a year before

people started finding out
about Beanie Babies.

The kids like them so if
he keeps them happy,

that's why I buy them.

It was steady growth until Ty
had the article

in 'People Magazine'.

I'm the only journalist
who ever interviewed Ty Warner

about Beanie Babies.

In those days, if
'People Magazine' was calling,

people wanted to talk to you
because they knew the magazine.

If I think back,

I just kind of remember him
being almost like a young child

showing you things, you know?

Like, "Look here and look
what we did here!"

and he was just very,
very proud of what he'd done.

Ah! Here we go.

"Ty Warner's Beanie Babies"

"are the new gotta-have toys."

He didn't want to be the story,

he wanted the toys
to be the story,

and they certainly were.

Ty Warner and Ty Inc.

Did absolutely no advertising
and they did no media.

There was nothing
that came from the company.

People wanted someone who was
associated with Beanie Babies

to connect with.

It goes from the child
to the parents

to the aunts and uncles
and grandparents.

So we would have people

from magazines and
radio shows calling us,

so we became the Beanie Baby
advocates for collectors.

The brand-new current ones
are really hot demand

right here in the Chicago area.

This is actually where
the craze began.

I can say, hey, I think Becky
and I and Peggy and Mary Beth

really did a lot for it Ty

to get this moving
in the right direction.

Open any newspaper
to the classified ads

and you're likely to find
at least a half-dozen ads

from people selling, buying
or trading Beanie Babies.

Each day, they come
to Hamilton Place Mall

searching for these -
Beanie Babies.

I think the girls
really liked it at first

but now I think the adults
have got into it, you know?

This was supposed to be a toy

and we were all having
a lot of fun with it,

but now it's moving
into a different realm.

What is a Beanie Baby?

It's a beanbag toy
meant to be played with.

My name is Harry Rinker,
and during my career,

I was
known as the Beanie Meanie.

What makes The Beanie Baby come
alive is the secondary market.

Not the primary market
where it first is sold,

but what happens to it when
somebody tries to resell it.

Kids started demanding

that their parents
buy Beanie Babies for them

because their friends had them.

Parents said "Oh, my gosh",

"I need to get that
this Beanie Baby for my kids,"

and they went to the store
and it wasn't there,

so then they went onto
the secondary market,

the newspaper columns and
all the rest of them

and they paid double,
triple, quadruple.

Essentially, with any bubble,
what it starts with

is enthusiasm
from a small group.

I'm Dave Sobolewski,

I am the middle child
of Mary Beth Sobolewski,

one of the original
Beanie Ladies.

So my background, my education,
my profession, it's all finance.

You know, Beanie Babies
is a case study

in just how a few people
pushing an idea and enthusiasm,

crazy things can happen.

Well, they started lining up at
: in the afternoon yesterday

for our o'clock sale,
so they waited about . hours.

- Have you got them all?
- Yeah. All of them.

- And more.
- And more.

- Oh, it gets worse.
- All of them and more.

OK. Well, you made
it hard, didn't you?

You know, you have...

Oh, I think Jeannine Twardus,
she was over the edge.

I had wrote a song,
'It's a Beanie Rap',

and the words just flowed
through my fingers

as I typed them into a computer.

People have told me it's catchy.

Let me tell you a story
about a guy named Ty

He created these beanies that
make me high

Little beans in their bodies
and cute little faces

I'm addicted to them
been to all kinds of places

Smuggling beanies upstairs
It's no lie

And I blame it all on a guy
named Ty

It's a beanie rap
It's a beanie rap

It's a beanie rap

I'm all tied up.

I actually sold some in my
store and on the Internet.

I even tried sending a copy
to a local radio station

but they never played it.

Back in the s,
I was in the Navy.

I was a cryptological
technician.

When I left the Navy,
I was working for a bank

and then I worked at the FBI
for three years.

Like...

"Do I want to do this for
the rest of my life?" You know?

And so I eventually
left the FBI.

I'm all tied up.

I think it was around ' ,
'cause AOL just had come out.

You've got mail!

And I saw an article about
Beanie Babies

in a Chicago newspaper.

And it described how people
were both going crazy

over these little animals and
I got on the Internet

to see if anybody else was
collecting them

and back then, they
had little chat rooms on AOL,

and it was not formalised like
it is now in the Internet world,

it was very rudimentary.

Can you believe
what's possible these days?

Conversations through
your computer!

Worlds of information
one click away.

Everyone I know is on it.

- Email.
- Instant messages.

There's no better way
to keep in touch.

You've got mail.

It was, like, a very
characteristic sound

of logging onto
the Internet in the ' s.

And you could hear it through
the whole house!

I went to Ty and I told him

there's this thing
called the Internet.

If we build something that has
a list of all of our products

and a guestbook,

just like you would
think at a wedding,

when you have
a guestbook at a wedding,

and he asked a bunch
of questions, I remember,

and said, "Let's build this",

"this might be something
cool to build."

Would you believe Beanie Babies

have their own website?

And that was when
the journey began.

Jillian and Reed
regularly go on the Internet.

We go on the Internet

and we go to what they call
the guestbook...

It was maybe one of
the first blogs

that ever existed
on the Internet.

As maybe a predecessor to the
sentiments that early Facebook

was asking for people to share

"what are you doing right
now in this moment?"

You can see it
has Beanie Baby games,

it has a list with graphics

and also a text version
of the list.

That was so far ahead, it's only
in looking back,

that you see,
"Wow, they were really early."

But this is the Ty one that
we're going to see first.

It's the mother of all of them.

Let's take a look at that.

- Mm-hm.
- Not many hits.

Look at the number of hits.
Back up.

Oh, my God.

Over billion hits.

The page was constantly crashing

because of the amount
of traffic that it was getting.

This craze never
would've happened

if there wasn't an Internet.

But the Internet
in and of itself

was not enough to make
Beanie Babies what they became.

On the guestbook, Ty Warner
allows us

to talk to each
other about the Beanie Babies

and to sell Beanie Babies.

Now you've got people
from America Online

trying to hook up with people

that are buying
and selling Beanie Babies.

"Here, if you want this, I can
sell it to you for bucks."

Beanie Babies would go
to production

and they'd be in production
for a certain amount of time...

Suddenly, they weren't able

to make a particular
one of the Beanies

or the fabric ran out or they
just couldn't get that shipment

and they found when a particular
item was less available,

that people wanted it more.

I don't think he
did that on purpose.

I think it was just a fluke
and the collectors caught it.

Bob Howard picked up

three new retirees
for his grandson.

He chose Rover, Ziggy
and Squealer.

Ty wanted to capitalise on that

and not just quietly
let one of the beanies retire,

but to actually start
letting people know.

Two weeks before January, ,

Ty closes down his website.

And he puts a clock
on the website.

So we're all waiting.

And then, all of a sudden,
January ...

he tells us all
about the beanie babies

that were going to be retired.

So you had people in stores

so they can go and pick them up
before they're all gone.

It was like you didn't
want to miss out.

Mom, I want this one!

Behind all this
is a carefully crafted strategy,

add one new beanie
to the market, and take one away

and one by one

the beanies move into
the Endangered Species category.

The collectors loved it.

Nothing to spark
a collector's interest

more than
"You can't have it anymore."

So then people now are going in

and if they see one of
the ones they've just retired,

they buy the whole bunch.

Once they retire them,

they become very hard to get?

Exactly.

Well, then what you saw
with Beanie Babies

is the supply went even lower,

as these beanies
kept getting retired.

So then you've got demand
going way higher.

So prices will rise.

You see how the psychology

of both Ty Warner
and the collectors

played hand-in-hand
to really fuel this mania.

What happens to a Beanie Baby

once a Beanie Baby retires?

- The price of it goes up.
- No kidding!

$ , $ , $ .

The prices went up and
up and up.

A complete collection
of Beanie Babies

could go as high as $ , .

Somebody offered me
$ , dollars.

$ , . years ago, right?

I said no.

In comes the people who
said "They're an investment."

"I can buy Beanie Babies and
send my kids through college."

This was becoming
something different.

We don't play with these things

because they're going
to be worth money.

If the tag was creased, you'd
ruin the value of your beanie.

People were starting to do it
for financial investment.

There were the collectors

that made it into a business

and there were others
that weren't collectors at all

that just made it a business.

I call myself
the monkey in the middle.

My name is Phyllis Miceli.

I've been known as
Queenie Beanie for years.

I didn't collect 'em,
I sold 'em.

I was crazy about the money in
the bank,

not about the Beanie Babies.

I sold to accountants,

actuaries, airplane pilots,

they were all
into Beanie Babies.

A gentleman emailed me

and he said, "Can you handle
a large account?"

And I said, "No problem.
Send me the money."

And he sent me $ , .
To buy Beanie Babies for him.

He was stationed
in the Marines in Hawaii.

I didn't trust the Beanie Babies

being sent through the mail.

So we hopped on a plane and
handcarried them to Hawaii.

His wife went to the bathroom
and he handed me , cash.

And he said, "Don't tell my wife
what I paid for these."

My husband and I both thought
it was totally crazy.

And when we got back
to the hotel

I remember we threw
the money on the bed.

First ever international
Beanie Baby convention.

How do you like that?

people milled
through the convention centre

to get a closer look
at current and retired Beanies.

I realised
going to the collector shows

that there were people out there

who were buying the beanies
and this was their livelihood.

This was their job.

I know some of them that would
make $ , at a show.

And so we started doing
the same thing.

And so we were shipping boxes
of Beanies and selling them.

I would get, like,
Patti the Platypus.

I remember thinking,

"I just paid bucks for
each one of these,"

"and my husband said, how much
are you gonna sell these for?"

I said, "$ ."

Right away, I'm not good in math

but he's, like, calculating,

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Oh, my God!"

He's, like, jumping around.

He thought I was just a genius.

I might have bought
a newer Mercedes.

I had 'B BABIES'
Yeah, I got the plates,

I thought "Oh, my God,
this is so cute."

It was on my Mercedes
and I was proud of that.

Becky Phillips

and Becky Estenssoro
of Naperville

have turned Beanies
into a career.

They've even written a book
called 'Beanie Mania'.

We want to concentrate on the
collectors,

so they know what's available,
so they don't get ripped off.

Out of her home
where she and her husband

are raising several children,

she puts out 'Mary Beth's
Beanie World Magazine'.

A publisher gave me a call
out of the absolute blue

and said, "We would like
to do a magazine"

"all about Beanie Babies."

By the end of the time
the first issue was out,

they made it a bimonthly.

It just kept going
and going and going.

They're going to be
turning out , copies

of the May issue.

I couldn't believe it.
I was like,

"Oh, my gosh,
this is my name on here.

"Are you kidding?"
This is just me from suburbia.

I think in the Beanie Baby
world, I was famous.

I was pretty famous.

We all want that one moment

where we feel that maybe
this is just our special time.

Ty did not
manipulate this market.

Let's talk about what it takes
to manipulate a market.

First of all, there needs to be
a secondary market

and a craze -
that we already established.

This is the highest price I have
heard. For $ at a show...

Then you need the media,

they're the best suckers to
manipulating a market out there

if you can get them to do it.

There are so many collectors
all around the world,

this, of course,
is a phenomenon.

I got paid to go to England,
I was all over Germany.

You start out with a finite
list of Beanie Babies

where you can check them off.

I was doing so much media,
it was truly / .

The books and
magazines explain their worth.

They needed the price guides
that come out.

These ladies that wrote
these price guides

made a lot of
money off of it - why?

Because they raise the price
in every price guide

and people took that as
a price absolute.

People pay hundreds,
even thousands

for hard-to-find beanies
on the secondary market.

But to spend that much money...

The feeling is just very intense
in this collectibles market.

There was such a frenzy.

Oh, gosh!

Just the electricity.

They would just lunge and grab

and somebody was yelling,
"I need, I need,"

and it would
go flying across the store.

You'll start
to do anything you can

to 'complete your collection'.

That's when things
got out of control.

Don't be fooled,
these are not the real thing.

US Customs officers
at O'Hare Airport

confiscated over
fake Beanie Babies.

People knew they could start

making money on this stuff,

that's when the counterfeits

started oozing
into the environment

and ruining everything.

The stash of cute creatures

was initially mistaken for
a different kind of stash.

We suspected that there
may be narcotics in it.

When the inspectors
opened the boxes,

lo and behold, stuffed animals.

There are some
Beanie Babies out there

that sport a $ price tag.

With that kind
of money at stake,

Customs officials say
despite this huge Beanie bust,

keeping fake ones off the street
may be nearly impossible.

We know of several collectors

who lost at least $ ,
or more on Beanies

because they were counterfeit.

The first thing that we noticed

when we open the box was
the material.

You can see that the material

on the fake, counterfeit Beanies

are not as plush as the
regular Beanie Babies are.

In the beginning, counterfeit
Beanie Babies,

it was obvious
they were counterfeit.

But then they were starting to
look better and better

so that is when you had people

like Peggy Gallagher

starting to do authentication
of beanies.

They are picking
these up for c

but these are rejects,

these are not the authentic Ty
Beanie Babies.

- So they're frauds?
- They are frauds.

They were coming from Beijing

and the people in China knew
that these Americans are crazy,

they're paying all this money...

Well, of course they're gonna
start counterfeiting them!

'Cause there gonna
make a fortune

because these people don't even
know what they look like.

You know what, you have
a service that you offer.

Yes - on my website,

I have the first
authenticating business

for Beanie Babies.

People were sending these
to me from all over the country,

and I think I charged bucks

and then I started
getting a lot of competition

but I was still the main one.

They knew they could trust me.

So that has a lot
to do with my success.

For a little item,

it's amazing how much
of a back story there is.

You can't even imagine.

Initially, I don't even remember

having a title at the time -
it was just sales,

and then, within six months,

he had asked me to become
general manager for the company.

It seems so much smaller
than I remember.

We were all young at the time,

and everyone was open to change.

So I think that
was really exciting

to be able to hit the dragon's
tail and it actually moved.

It was insane. You couldn't get
through on the phone.

Ty was very frustrated when
he couldn't get through.

So he installed we called it
the bat phone.

The big red phone.

If that rang, whoever was there
had to run and get the phone.

My name is Mark Jeremias

and I was executive VP
over merchandising for Ty Inc.

I started in
the fashion business.

I spent my life
watching supermodels

take their clothes
off in front of me

and then I came back and worked
with little teddy bears,

so that's a rather big
difference.

When your secondary market
becomes so, so, so much greater

than your primary market,

that's when a brand
has problems.

- Yes.

He's protecting the brand,
the trademark, the copyrights.

You know, on the other hand,
I think that some aspects of it,

um, it's just become
a part of his nature.

Well, what kind of people?

I'm just asking what kind of
people you talking about?

That's all true.

We had to tiptoe
around the Ty company itself.

Because we were treated much
of the time as an enemy,

which is really crazy

because, um, we were
their mouthpiece

and due to our media presence
and our magazines,

that they sold, you know,
millions more Beanie Babies

than they may be would have.

Everybody is selling something.

Beanie hats, Beanie shirts,

Beanie jewellery, even
Beanie computer software.

The one thing all these
people have in common

is that none of them have
anything to do with Ty Inc.

Probably the biggest
entrepreneur of all

is Mary Beth Sobolewski.

Originally,
Mary Beth was a collector,

as her collecting increased,
she decided to do the magazine.

The magazine
at the time I believe

was starting to make
a lot of money.

'Mary Beth's
Beanie World Monthly'

was out for about . years

and things were
going so smoothly

and then all of a sudden, one
day, I'm working from my home

and the doorbell rings.

And I open the door and they
said, "Mary Beth Sobolewski?"

Really nice, cheery young guy.
I said, "Yes, that's me."

And he says, "Here,"
and I'm like, "What are these?"

"You're being served."

"Served? Oh, my gosh."

You know, Mary Beth
was profiting

off of our likeness and image.

Well, that was an issue for us.

So I was being sued by Ty Inc

for infringement on using
the word 'Beanie' in our title.

I had spent my last . years

being a cheerleader
for this man and his products.

And to get served,

I felt like it was kind of a
thorn in my side.

She took advantage of the
situation,

of benefiting by infringing on
copyright and trademark,

to me, it's not an ethical...
thing to do.

What do you think my chances are

of getting an interview
with Ty for this documentary?

- Absolutely zero.
- Why?

He doesn't like to interview.

Stores say when they get them,

they're as good as sold.

It's a nationwide frenzy and
a multimillion-dollar business.

It was insane.

We couldn't get the product
in fast enough to ship it out.

I think at one point
in the late ' s,

they were shipping
$ million a day.

It was crazy.

My sales in ... Um...
I don't care, I'll tell you.

They were $ . million.

And in they
were $ million.

So yeah, it was
pretty straight up.

I don't know how
many are sold but...

Yep. Yep, I did.
I bought a crazy car.

It was a Porsche .

Pretty sweet car.
I was pretty lucky.

So as it goes out the door,

there's another container
coming in the door.

So...

All gone in two months.
That's the turnover.

And then it will
all fill up again.

My estimates are that we sold
over million Beanie Babies.

It's ridiculous.

But think of how many he did,
if he did maybe times that.

You know, you can do the math.

The world has lost
Princess Diana at age

in a car crash in Paris,

along with her companion...

She was an iconic figure
in the world, I think.

And it was covered endlessly.

No-one could've
required this ocean of flowers.

I think people were very,
very sad about

the loss of such a positive
person at such a young age.

People can understand now
what Diana did for them.

For those who love and collect
Beanie Babies,

there's a new one hitting the
stores today,

it's a bear called Princess

in honour of Diana,
the Princess of Wales.

NBC's David Gregory this morning

is in a shop in Chicago.

- Hi, David.
- Hi, Katie.

I wish you knew
how nervous I was

on the train coming down here

with this little
purple bear in my pocket.

Do you know that if people
knew I had this,

I could be mugged on
the streets of Chicago?

Here it is.
This is the Princess bear.

It's got the little yellow rose
on the chest there

and a little inscription
from the Ty toy company

saying "Like an angel,
she came from heaven above",

"she shared her compassion
her pain, and her love."

It goes on and on.

All profits of Ty from
this collectible

will be donated to the Diana,
Princess of Wales Memorial fund.

Princess bear was hard to get,
so that's why they were popular.

Each store will receive

of these special Beanie Babies.

And that will only add
to the collectability.

That's what credit cards
are made for.

Mm-hm. Credit card debt.

There was thousands of dollars
people were spending.

I will just give my credit card
number, just say,

"Here, just send me every one
of those little Beanie Babies"

"with the red Ty heart
and just send it to me."

It became an addiction.

I got addicted.

I never was addicted to
anything.

And I got addicted
to Beanie Babies.

And I ran amok,
is what happened.

That's a hard line to say.

I mean, when does
it turn into addiction?

When it becomes excessive?

Where it affects your
normal life? Could be.

What if your normal life
becomes part of the addiction,

you know what I mean?
It's supporting the addiction?

You just get the store, does
that become your normal life?

Or is that part of
the addict's life?

So...

I could've been a Beanie Baby
addict at one point.

The addiction is there.
And it's catching.

I don't know why you
can't cure it.

I'd have teddy bears
sitting here,

the brown teddy,
and I go to turn

and then I'd see
one sitting there

looking at me on the shelf.

"Oh, look, he's cute.
I'll buy him."

There's always a little bit of
financial problems

and it's still haunting me to
this date

so I get by but it's
hard, yeah, it's been hard.

We should start a group
called BA instead of AA,

Beanies Anonymous.

We could stand up and say,

"Hi, my name is Johnny,
and I have to have Gigi."

- It's is it a -step?
- No, it's a -step program.

- won't cover it.

This thing is so big
that I can't even imagine.

I met Ty through my hairdresser,

who offered to
make an introduction

and asked me to
bring in my resume

and he faxed over my resume
to Ty to take a look at.

Hundreds of companies
wanted to dance with us.

Virtually every category
that you can imagine,

from fragrance
to children's apparel

to Beanie Baby backpacks.

Steven Spielberg's office
called regularly.

They wanted Beanie Babies
for their movies.

Virtually none.

Ty was a very smart man.

He understands that the greater
you diffuse your product,

the less you can control it.

They chase me around all day,
looking around my cart.

I'll come out the back
of the store

and there'll be five people
waiting on me.

And they'll just smile,
I know what they want.

People were following
UPS trucks all over the suburbs,

from one Hallmark store
to another.

It was obvious
where it was going

and it was kind of obvious
how to throw fuel on it.

- Dinosaur?
- Nope. Stomach. I'm starving.

- Hey, let's get a Happy Meal.
- Cool.

In the s,
a Happy Meal was a staple

in every mom's life.

A Happy Meal
made your kid happy.

The first license that was
secured was a license

with McDonald's Corporation
for a line of Teenie Beanies.

- First I got Pinky.
- Then I got Pinky!

I got Pinky And Patti
in the same week!

What, did Vanessa
catch something?

Teenie Beanie Baby-it is.

Now at McDonald's,

your kids can get Teenie Beanie
Babies in a Happy Meal.

Real Ty Beanie Babies
in a mini size.

Teeny Beanies.

The Beanie Babies
officially went out

with Happy Meals
at : this morning

and that's when
the onslaught began.

Can I get the purple
Beanie Baby?

She's already got the pink one.

McDonald's is selling
out in Chicago

and throughout the Midwest.

Parts of New York City
and Connecticut and the South.

Maybe if there was a few people
left that hadn't heard

of Beanie Babies or Ty Inc.,

this was the way to make sure
everybody knew.

McDonald's thought the Babies

would last five weeks -
they were gone in two.

If you want one of these little
cuddly characters,

you better
get to McDonald's fast.

The kids say they have
to have them all.

The little Teenie Beanie Babies,

that became a whole
collecting frenzy too.

I got the cat. Two to go.

The woman in front of
me, they had turned over a card

that they were out of something

and she must've been waiting
for it and she went nuts.

Mom, I want this.

I hate to admit
some of this stuff

but I got a number of sets,
full sets of Teenie Beanies

by no other way but going
through the drive-through.

We would take all of the kids.

And we would put them in line,

"Here's $ .
Here's $ . Here's $ ."

Get in line, get a set
of the Teenie Beanies

and out they would go.

And we would go
to a different store,

and we put them in line again.

McDonald's says it
has ordered more Beanie Babies

than it did
for its last largest promotion.

Sets of the new Beanies

are already being
auctioned on eBay

for twice the retail price.

I figured $
would be reasonable

for a set of Teenie Beanies

and I sold sets
the first weekend.

The happiest meal of all

is the profits
the company is reeling in.

McDonald's expects

to double its usual
sales of Happy Meals.

Beanie Baby this, Beanie Baby...

And they're not
only ordering two or three,

they're ordering
like , , .

This is our fourth McDonald's.

I was only buying food in
order to get Beanie Babies.

She doesn't want to eat all
these Happy Meals.

Who could? Who would?

It was, like, ridiculous.
People were throwing away food.

That part I didn't like.

Oh, my God. A guy's
stopping. This is unbelievable.

Several hundred
little international bears

headed to McDonald's

dumped accidentally
in the middle of five lanes

of rush-hour traffic.

The Golden Arches' loss
was someone's gain.

And it wasn't pretty.

There it is! There it is!
Oh, my God. Look at this.

They're rolling on this, right?

Would you ask your mom
to pull over?

- Yeah.
- You think she would?

They're crazy. Come on, folks.
It's just Beanie Babies.

Greed. It is the dark side
of anything.

One store in Royal Oak, Michigan

ran out in just two hours,

a shipment in Wisconsin
was hijacked by thieves.

Beanie Babies
are becoming so valuable,

they're attracting
the criminal element now.

Beanie burglars, if you will.

That's who investigators say
broke into a home

here in Pasco County and stole
a family's entire collection.

Its felony theft, $ ,
worth of Beanie Babies

were taken.

At tradeshows, people knew

that I would have these rare
Beanie Babies.

They would tried stealing them,
right out of the little cage.

And then I thought, "Oh, my God",

"I've gotta hire
off-duty policemen"

"to stand by my table."

We had a full transport truck

and the next morning, we had
the shipping company call us

and say, "We went to pick
up the truck last night",

"but it wasn't there."

And I said,
"I don't know where it is."

The police department views
this matter very seriously.

Just as seriously as we would

if it involved the disappearance
of money, drugs or weapons.

Well, they found the truck the
next day,

but it was completely empty

and it had about $ , worth
of product on it.

That was the point probably
in time where I went,

"Well, this is really,
really out of control."

I mean, there were so many
scams going on

it was unbelievable.

We had employees who were

getting bribed
to put orders through.

We even had employees walking
out of the warehouse

with them in their shoes.

They are putting them
in their pants,

they were putting them
in their shirts.

One woman, who was very sweet,

she was an A-cup,
and she leaves in a double-D.

It was bad.
You know, it was bad.

A security guard
making the rounds

was surprised by two men
who jumped him from behind,

and attacked
with a sledgehammer.

This is pretty much
the worst I've seen

as far as for a stuffed animal
or a toy for a child.

Beanie Babies are
more than just a passion -

for Ty Warner,
these beanbag collectibles

have turned the company into
a billion-dollar business.

Sales of Beanie Babies
skyrocketed

from a reported $ million
worth last year

to an estimated
$ . billion this year.

There was a sales meeting
we had where he had announced,

"I have never been in a room
with so many millionaires,"

or something to that effect.

And we had our whole
management team there.

None of the management team
was compensated like that.

The reps were obviously...

They get a percentage
of the commissions

and they were
making very, very big money.

And it was one of those things,

all the management team
sort of, like...

bit their tongue and that's
where it sort of hits you.

The first year
he became successful,

he gave all his employees
their annual salary as a bonus.

And then the following year,

he gave them all
a Billionaire Bear,

that cost him maybe $ . to
make, and that was their bonus.

Billionaire Bears,

here's a picture of one of them,

it's given by Ty,
there's of these made,

signed, and numbered,
to his employees.

The warehouse employees were
mostly immigrants,

a lot of them
didn't speak English.

A lot of the employees
wanted the money.

Because if the bear sold
for $ , ,

that's a lot of money,
they could go and buy furniture

or appliances or put
a down-payment on a car.

He would number each Beanie Baby

so they could tell
which employee

had which Billionaire Bear.

So they would come to me
to sell them

and I would put a range of
numbers on eBay,

so that they wouldn't know,

Ty wouldn't know who sold
their bear on eBay.

He had a number of people

that would check
on everything on eBay

that people did.
That was their job,

to sit there and check auctions.

I know of several occasions
where they stopped my auctions.

They thought I was
and I never did.

But they thought about
that with everyone.

They thought everybody
was corrupt except them.

And it turned out that they
were the corrupt ones.

As the company expanded and

there was additional management
being brought on,

not everyone had the same values

and that, for me, was probably
the most challenging,

dealing with some people.

I just didn't agree with that
and that's what I told them.

I said, "The management team"

"is different at this point
in time - I'm done."

At that point,
the impact of what we had done

was indisputable.

And what I wanted ultimately,
I wasn't able to get.

So we left.

And I later found out

that people within
the Board of Directors

did not really
understand the Internet

and thought it was a fad.

I was very hurt.

Even though I walked away and
it was me that walked away,

it was such a big part of
my life.

Welcome to Ty Canada, guys.

- How you doing?
- Good.

Ty started to ask
for things that

were completely out of the norm

from the relationship we'd had.

He asked me for my entire
customer list.

These are all Beanie Babies,
these are all Beanie Babies,

and these are all Beanie Babies.

He asked for me to put my
building up as collateral

and I said,
"I can't do those things."

"I'm not going
to do those things."

And he said
"Well, I guess we're done."

And it was like that.

We ended up having to close

and I had to let
all of our staff go.

And having the bank come in

and sell off all of
the product that we had.

And yeah, that was probably the
closest I've ever come

to a nervous breakdown.

Everybody keeps going,
"How long can it last?"

And it's like, "Forever."

I don't see any end in sight
to Beanie Babies at all.

You know, people get
caught up in these crazes

and they think they're
going to go on forever.

This is here to stay.

I don't think the Beanie craze
will ever die.

People think prices will
continually rise to infinity.

This morning we asked two people

with two very differing
opinions.

Mary Beth Sobolewski, also with
us this morning Harry Rinker.

I really was a handsome dude
when I was younger, wasn't I?

Mr Rinker, you call yourself -
your term - a beanie meanie.

Why?

Well, first of all,
yes, there's a secondary market,

but what you have to understand

about the Beanie Baby
secondary market

is it is highly speculative.

We have no guarantees

that the prices today will
be the prices tomorrow

and what goes up
is definitely gonna come down.

I was the Beanie Meanie.

I would debate with these people

because they really believed it.

Mary Beth, I know you want to
disagree with that.

You say that every time
a new one comes out,

an old one goes off the market,

they get bigger and better,
is that the case?

Absolutely.

I have to agree with Harry

that it is a very
speculative market.

There's no doubt about it.

But any long-term investment
is speculative.

The problem is

that when somebody
is trying to tout a market,

they tout the top end,

and don't ever ask, "What's
the condition of the market"

"in the middle and low end?"

And if the bottom and the middle
of the market was weak,

that was a bad market
to be playing in.

Six years after
Ty introduced Beanie Babies

and versions later,

these small stuffed animals

are sagging on
the secondary market.

Three different guides show the
values of many retired beanies.

Those no longer made,
have dropped considerably.

What do you hope to do
with Beanie Babies someday?

Give them to my kids
when they get old enough

to maybe one day,

it might send them through
college or something.

At some point, there
comes a time

where somebody buys it
for a certain amount

and they can't
sell it for profit.

People say, "You know what?"

"I don't want to buy
beanies anymore"

"because I can't make a profit."

So then there's more supply
than there is demand.

And now the same dynamics
that fuelled the bubble,

they're in reverse,

and it can be a vicious cycle
to the downside.

Welcome back.

On special assignment tonight,
a close look at Beanie Babies.

Six years ago, these
tiny toys hit the stores

and sales now are sagging,

values are plunging,
and collectors are concerned.

All of a sudden,
there was this one month

when a couple started
to go down.

And then you notice
the next month,

more and more and more
went down.

And that was getting
a little frightening.

Don't you think a lot
of people out there

have been misled by
the worth of Beanie Babies?

The ones that have
been retired since

have, in my opinion,
been overproduced.

Like the Princess Di bear,

people paid hundreds for her,
we were offered eight bucks.

It was no longer
the market of scarcity

and collecting
like a collector would,

it was flooded.

I think a lot of people got
caught up in it

without understanding
how it worked.

The secondary market couldn't

sustain an increase
in value and all of a sudden,

the Beanie Babies
that you thought

you could double your money on

were selling for less
than you paid for them.

Just when I felt that people
were getting tired of something,

Ty would always do something
to create a frenzy.

When Beanie Baby collectors

logged on to their
favorite website,

this is what they found.

In the fall of ,

he came out with
the announcement

that there were
gonna be no more Beanie Babies.

A web posting by
the Ty Corporation

makes it very clear

that Beanie Babies will
be a thing of the past

come December .

Estimates are more than
a billion Beanies have sold,

and when inventory clears,
there will be no more.

That was the saddest day
of my life.

I thought, "Oh, my God,
this is..."

"You can't take these little
Beanie Babies away."

December , the entire line

of Beanie Babies
will be retired.

No more Beanie Babies
created. No more.

I think it's very, very sad.

I think it's really bad.

Kinda sad.

I'm happy. I'm going to
get a lot of money now.

Everybody started emailing
and calling and acting crazy.

"Did you see this? Did you
see this on the news?"

"Did you see this all over the
Internet?"

Retailers say this latest bit
of Beanie buzz

is moving merchandise.

So yesterday, you sold
Beanie Babies in two hours.

At least. Yeah.

This is all that's
left at the Gift Cottage

in south suburban Midlothian.

The phones were nonstop ringing.

We had customers
every second of the day

trying to get any
Beanie Baby they could get.

He knew how to market
his beanies.

He knew how to get
interest from people.

He knew how to get those
emotions going

in order for us
to continue buying his beanies.

My prediction
is that there will be

some kind of Beanies, maybe
in a little different way,

for the new millennium,

maybe with a little
different look.

So guess what?

He comes up with this
'vote to save the Beanies'.

Starting December ,
Beanie Baby fanatics

can vote on Ty's website.

They announced on the website
that people are going to

get to vote now for cents.

So you can vote.

I think it's going
to be phenomenal

and it's gonna be... you know,
this is PT Barnum time.

This is, you know, "There's
a sucker born every minute."

We're gonna see people
behaving in apocalyptic ways.

Will computers
recognize the year

or will they shut down
thinking is the year ?

Some believe the feared Y K bug

could temporarily knock out
power.

Shut down the water system
and cause panic in the streets.

The bottom line, no one can
really predict the future.

Five, four, three, two, one!

You've got mail.

This week, drumroll please,
it was announced

that the toys will continue
to hit the stores.

Now some are wondering if this
wasn't just one big PR stunt.

What a wonderful way to find out

if there's a collectible
audience out there,

let people vote!

- I'm gonna...
- What about that Internet vote?

- It was so staged, wasn't it?
- Do you think?

Collectors are taking
a wait-and-see attitude

towards the new toys.

Don't do it. Stay out of it.
It's worse than smoking.

We realized it was just
a gimmick to entice people

to possibly purchase
more of his Beanies.

I personally felt manipulated.

It's like, "Are you kidding?"

Why would you stop a good thing?

It was too popular, too...

I think it was just
a big publicity stunt.

I think he just wanted to
create more demand.

Beanie insiders say

they're are little sceptical
about the company's motives.

What might have
looked like a great idea

because he was used to
retiring and creating,

all of a sudden, um, backfired.

I think it's time
to stop, myself.

I think a lot of the collectors,

they just sold their Beanies
and got out of the collection.

The people were disgusted
with all the money they'd lost,

they were just letting
them go for practically nothing.

A lot of people that
had significant collections

were willing to discount it

if you bought a lot
of them at once.

All of the original Beanie Baby
sites were shutting down

and he started collecting
Beanie Babies

at just the right moment.

We have about ,
Ty products.

Oh, boy. You hit me with
a question like that. Um...

I'd have to find
him but it's a lamb.

Yeah. There you go.
There's Sondra.

I'm gonna go with Ringo
the Raccoon

because there's something
about a raccoon's mask

that just reminds me of my dad

because I thought
it looked like him,

it reminded me of the little
dark circles under his eyes.

Anyway, it was
Ringo the Raccoon.

Wow.

It's not a commercial
collection,

it's a collection that we love
the items we're collecting.

Really have warm feelings
for a lot of them.

And when you have them around,

they kind of cheer you up,

and if you really get upset,

you can talk to them or yell
at them, they don't judge you.

He's never yelled
at any of them.

No. I don't want to hurt
their feelings.

I don't have any problem

with Beanie Baby collectors

if they collect it
because they love it.

I'm contemptuous of people

who think that antiques and
collectibles are investments.

It's a gamble!

The media likes to talk about

the rise and fall
of the Beanie Babies.

And we kind of want
to refer to that

as the rise and fall of
the Beanie Baby gamblers.

The days of that
magazine took time and energy.

It did cost me a lot.

I hope my kids,
when they look back on it now,

don't feel like I didn't give
them what they deserved.

So, um...

I hope I gave them what
they needed during that time.

I'm sure for some people,
they collect their whole life.

For me, it's now in the past.

Now the Beanie Babies are in
a case. And life has gone on.

No.

Like I said before, it's more
like Beanie Baby bankruptcy.

Because I had a lot
and I still have a lot.

It's been a long time,

we're talking
at least years or so.

And I didn't sell
a lot of stuff.

I don't know
what would've happened

if I had sold them all
and made a lot of money then.

It would've made things
easier now, that's for sure.

Maybe I could've paid off the
house sooner, you know?

I don't know.

The only person that really
became a big millionaire

was Ty himself

because he ended up
getting so rich.

The billionaire
creator of Beanie Babies

has been accused of hiding
as much as $ million

in a Swiss bank account
to avoid paying taxes on it.

H. Ty Warner,

the man behind the lovable plush
toys popular in the ' s,

reportedly faces a stint in
prison for up to months

when he's sentenced
on January in Chicago.

I didn't know much about it

other than what
I read in the paper

but I understand that he had
money in an offshore account

and was not paying taxes
on some of his profits.

He admitted that he
set up an offshore bank account

in Switzerland
back in the s.

Warner said in court

his decision to evade taxes
was a bad one,

and he is begging a judge
not to put him behind bars

after admitting to tax evasion.

I remember seeing the
pictures of him in court

and thinking, "Wow,
that's really too bad."

"I liked that guy."

Warner pleaded guilty
to the accusation in court.

Now all that's left
is for a judge to decide

how Warner will
pay for his crimes.

The judge
says a two-year probation

and community service sentence
is fair

given Mr Warner's
personal humiliation

and record of charitable works.

The judge said

that charity work
that Warner had done,

that justified no prison time.

I don't like the idea of people
avoiding paying their taxes.

I pay my taxes and
it's awfully hard for me.

But I do and I think

if you're going to be a
citizen in this country,

you should pay your taxes

because you having all
the good benefits out of it.

Pay your taxes.

This is the homepage.

You'll notice no pop-ups,

no advertising
we're not selling anything.

They show an introduction.

If you're just interested

in how many Beanie
Babies there were,

we show a complete list
of every Beanie Baby ever made.

If we keep this up, we're gonna
have to open a small museum.

A small museum would be fun.

It would give me something
to do when I retire.

It will be a job for Sondra.

The one that everyone
asks about probably

the most hit page in our site

is the Princess
Beanie Baby values.

So if you look
at the average price

for the most valuable
princess on the Internet

it's at $ , which is much
lower than people believe.

Hello, everyone.
I'm Colleen Ballinger.

And I don't think I have
ever been this excited

for a YouTube video.

You might notice behind me
a pile of Beanie Babies.

Hey, what is up, you guys? It's
me, @lovekayray.

And today we are valuing
and selling our Beanie babies.

This Beanie Baby is worth $ .
That is insane.

I just scored four bins
of Beanie Babies

for bucks total.

This guy's only worth about
seven bucks,

he's worth about seven bucks,

this guy is actually
worth about nine bucks.

Now, that doesn't
seem like a lot

but think about it,
the three guys right here

after shipping and fees,
I made all my money back.

I'm going on record,
it may not be true,

to say that I have the
world's largest collection

of Beanie Babies.

Elvis people, don't you want
the Elvis edition Beanie Baby?

That's got to be
a collector's item.

Somebody wants this thing.
'Cause I don't.

I want the money.

My mom started collecting
Beanie Babies around .

For her, to collect this many
Beanie Babies, it took years.

I would tell her as a kid,

I think this could be
worth something one day

and she just kind of
held onto them.

I've never sold
a single Beanie Baby.

Not one.
I've just held onto them.

The collection themselves
and the connection to my mom

is the more intrinsic value
of them, I would say.

But there's a price.
I have my number.

I'll reserve what that is,
but I have my number.

But if it comes about

then the Beanie Baby collection
might not be here.

Mom, get in here. Wait.

Do you have something?
We might. Hold on.

I haven't even
looked for them yet

but one of the things it
says these international bears,

but it says if it's in
its original packaging.

Mom, why did you take it out
of the package?

Oh, my gosh.

I was getting tweets from fans
saying, "Oh, my gosh."

"I just looked up this
Beanie Baby and I have it."

"And it has this error on it."

So it kind of like started
everyone looking up

which Beanies they had to see
if they were worth anything.

Here's the Canada one
and it's not in the box.

Mom!

The YouTube video,
it was really fun.

We're gonna be rich!

And a great night for my mom
and I to have together.

Where's the camera?

- It's in the ring light.
- Oh.

Some of my best memories
from that time

were finding Beanie Babies and
collecting them with my mother.

I remember the feeling of it,
that's so bizarre.

Finding Beanie Babies

was one of the only things I
ever did with her

during that time of my life
that was special just for us.

This one's selling for $ .

I still feel like you could
sell them for a lot.

But that means part of your
childhood would go away.

It's, like, another bonding
moment for us, Mom.

We get to go through
this all again.

If another
beanie craze happened,

maybe my collection
would be worth something.

So I'm crossing my fingers
that another beanie craze

comes about 'cause I will make
so much money...

Probably not.

Now what's happening
with the market

is it's the grandchildren
coming around,

finding these tubs that
their grandparents left them,

revisiting this phenomenon.

I get them every day or a couple
of times during the day,

UPS automatically
sends me an email.

They want to make
sure they're authentic

and I think because
they're selling them on eBay.

No, because I love
Beanie Babies.

I don't get sick of it.

I charge, like, $ ,

I bought display cases,

I got tamper-evident tape,
certificates.

This is the one I write all
the details of the Beanie Baby.

The generation,
the authentication number,

which would be...
number , .

, .

Isn't that amazing?

It even shocks me.

Tape it on there.

And that's ready to go.

You know, a Beanie Baby
is just a thing.

What makes
the Beanie Baby come alive

is the stories
associated with it.

Who made it? How was it made?

Why was it collected?
How was it marketed?

And what does it say about
the people the collected them?

You know, sometimes
you reflect on it,

but you always go back
to the beginning.

Nobody really knows where
all this started.

But we do.

It was just
a little happy family.

And that's what's most
important to me

is the ones that I started out
with know exactly what we did.

Beanie Babies gave me first of
all a connection with my kids.

Especially in the beginning.

Of course, it brought
financial... um, success.

But if you're the
lucky owner of this,

this goes for about $ .

It brought me
a lot of craziness.

But it brought
a lot of good things.

years, and
it just keeps going

and it happened by accident.

I do. Because I love them.