The Original Nine of Beanie Babies

These Beanie Babies have become known as Original Nine, a named filled with wonder amongst collectors around the world. It is as legendary as maybe Fantastic Four or Oceans Eleven. Or maybe these Beanie Babies launched in late 1993 at the New York World Toy Fair just plain play in a division of their own.

As with many new introductions there were people who were sceptical. They nicknamed these beanies Road Kill. This due to their all new design, which included being somewhat understuffed and containing a mix of traditional stuffing and the all new beans. The design made it possible to place your beanie baby in various positions, sitting or laying down.

The concept was simple, plush animals with a small number of colors and some facial expressions added. More than the beanie babies themselves what also became a vital part of their fame was their hang tags. In the beginning most people removed these tags, at this time they did not have the later poems on them either, but later collectors kept the tags on there and the most valuable beanies today all have their hang tag intact. Several pages have been written on the topic of these hang tags and it might well be possible to base a doctors degree on the research of these tags. With the years the came in a multitude of variations.

Back to the group known as the Original Nine. These beanie babies were named Cubbie the Bear (originally named Brownie the Bear, Splash the Whale, Patti the Platypus, Squealer the Pig, Legs the Frog, Pinchers the Lobster, Chocolate the Moose and Spot the Dog. As with all Beanies, these have been retired during the years. When the concept of retirement was first introduced by Ty Warner in 1996 the fame of the beanie babies really took off.

Of the beanies mentioned above May of 1997 saw the retirement of Flash and Splash. In October the same year Spot and Legs did the same. The following year, 1998, all the other five were retired with Chocolate the Moose being the last one in December of that year.

Though they have now retired these Beanie Babies will forever be remembered as the ones who made it all happen in those early years together with their father and creator Ty Warner. Today it is hard to believe that originally the beanies were actually meant for kids to play with!

Kari Eriksson is an infopreneur and takes great interest in the Beanie Babies. He runs his site http://www.beaniebabiesdirectory.com where you can find articles, links and useful resources in regards to Beanie Babies.

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History of Beanie Baby

One could say the story of the Beanie Babies begins seven years before the first beanies, even see the light of day. In 1986 the company Ty Inc is established in Illinois in the USA. The founder is a man named Ty Warner and one can believe he was a man on a mission. The story has it that the beanie baby father was already a high powered toy sales man after working for another toy company, Dakin, for several years.

The Ty Inc company releases a few different collections before the beanie babies enter the scene in the year of 1993. Nothing would be the same again for the marketing genius of Ty Warner. The legend speaks of the Original Nine, a famous group of beanies that are forever enshrined in the history of toys and collectibles. They were Legs the Frog, Flash the Dolphin, Patti the Platypus, Spot the Dog, Patti the Platypus, Chocolate the Moose, Pinchers the Lobster, Splash the Whale and Cubbie the Bear (originally named Brownie the Bear). They are all first shown to the world at the New York Toy Fair of that year.

In the following two years the Beanie Babies go from a local Chicago thing to being a nationwide talk of the town. Ty continues his strategy of selling only directly to small gift and collectible stores. This is later seen as an important part of create the enormous myth around these lovely little creatures. So called experts expect forecast that the Christmas of 1995 will be beginning of the end for the Beanie Babies, but the following year proves the utterly wrong and nothing could be further from the truth.

In the year of 1996 sales grow tenfold! Stores are screaming for more beanie babies and Ty is working hard to keep up with the demand. The legend has it that he even has to lease large airplanes to get all the beanies out to the stores in time for the Easter rush. Ty continues to tightly control the whole business and the website ty.com is launched creating a place in cyberspace where Beanie Baby trades can take place. Here also for the first time one can actually follow the retiring of the different characters, another part that contributes to the big craze around these toys.

The rest as they say, is history. Sales surpass 250 million dollars in 1996, Ty is interviewed in People Magazine and Forbes Magazine. Beanies Babies become one of the the largest crazes in toy history and with the step from just mouth-to-mouth into traditional advertising in 1996 they become unstoppable across the globe.

Kari Eriksson is an infopreneur and takes great interest in the Beanie Babies. He runs his site http://www.beaniebabiesdirectory.com where you can find articles, links and useful resources in regards to Beanie Babies.

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17 Ways To Determine If A Beanie Baby Is Counterfeit

You should always buy Ty Beanie Babies from reputable dealers or from sellers who you know how to contact. These dealers and sellers should also have many references and/or feedback from other people they have done business with.

Most counterfeit Beanie Babies are easy to spot if you know what to look for. If you don't know what to look for then you will probably have a hard time telling most counterfeit Beanie Babies from authentic Ty Beanie Babies.

Beanie Baby shows are a good place to check out expensive Beanie Babies. Try to handle them if you can. Get to know the feel of the fabric and their overall appearance.

Some counterfeits are excellent reproductions, but regardless of how good the counterfeits look, they usually have many mistakes. It is never just one mistake.

If you are buying expensive Beanie Babies, then you should educate yourself on the counterfeits or at least know where to find the information when you need it.

Here are two websites that have information on counterfeit Beanie Babies along with photographs of many of them:

About Beanies Counterfeit Information http://www.aboutbeanies.com/fakes/index.html

Ms. Janie's Beanies Counterfeit Page http://www.msjanie.com/fakes/fake_page.html

Your other option is to have the Beanie Baby authenticated which is inexpensive to do. You can get your Beanie Babies authenticated at these websites:

http://www.pbbags.com/

http://www.peggyg.com/

Most of the mistakes on the counterfeits can be found on the tags. Become familiar with the different generation hang tags and tush tags or know where to look to find this information.

You can find information and photographs of all the different generation hang tags Ty has produced here:

http://www.aboutbeanies.com/tags.html

Below are 17 ways to determine if a Beanie Baby is counterfeit:

1. Many of the counterfeits have spelling errors on the tags, but keep in mind that so do some of the authentic Ty Beanie Babies. So you usually have to look for other mistakes beside just this.

2. Check the tag dates and the addresses to make sure they are correct. Many of the counterfeits have the wrong date on the tush tag.

3. Compare the tags of the suspect Beanie Baby with the tags of another Ty Beanie Baby that you know to be authentic.

4. Is the type on the tags too light or too dark? Is it the right typeface?

5. Compare the tags to an authentic Ty Beanie Baby's tags and determine if the tags are smaller or larger than the authentic tags.

6. Compare the stock color inside the hang tag to another hang tag. Is it too white? Authentic tags have an off-white color.

7. Are the color of the hang tags identical? Or does the red and yellow on the hang tag look muted or too light or too dark? The hang tag should be blue red and not orange red.

8. The yellow star on the hang tag should be a bright sunshine yellow, not a mustard color.

9. Some of the counterfeit Beanie Babies have a yellow star on their hang tag that have points that are too "pointy." The points of authentic hang tag stars are slightly rounded.

10. Check the gold edge on the hang tag. It should have a nice clean line and be a light bright gold color. It shouldn't be brassy.

11. Check the overall size and shape of the Beanie. Some of the counterfeit Ty teddy bears have ears that are either too small or too large or perhaps the legs or arms are too short or are shaped strangely.

12. Is the teddy bear's head too large or overstuffed?

13. Check the eyes to see if they are too close together or too big or too small.

14. Are the eyes a solid color? Some Beanie Baby eyes are a solid color and some are not. Humphrey the camel has solid black eyes but most of the counterfeit Humphrey have eyes that are two-tone.

15. Check the fabric and see if it is rough or if the color is too dark or too light.

16. Does the fabric nap look right? Is the fabric rough, stiff or the wrong color?

17. Most authentic Beanies have nice plush fabric that "flows" in all directions and doesn't get "wrinkly."

One place you should avoid buying expensive Beanie Babies that are not authenticated is online auctions like eBay. Odds are that if you buy enough of these expensive Beanie Babies that are not authenticated, that you will eventually end up buying some that are counterfeit.

Reference: Mary Beth's Counterfeit Update

Barry Stein has been a Beanie Baby dealer since 1997. You can visit his website at http://BarrysBeanies.com, where he sells Beanie Babies retail and wholesale.

You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your e-book or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included with an active hyperlink to the BarrysBeanies.com website.

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Beanie Babies Anonymous

A wise man once said, "If you ignore something long enough, eventually it will go away." Actually, he said it several times, but nobody listened so he left.

That old saw is one reason I've never done a column on Beanie Babies. I thought that if I could just resist the urge to poke fun and ignore their existence long enough, they would eventually go the way of Cabbage Patch Dolls and Tickle Me Elmos. Of course, ignoring them didn't work and I should have known better. I've been ignoring my kids for years and they're still around, standing right outside the bathroom door, pounding on it, asking me what I'm reading in there. My oldest caught me looking at the newspaper on the front porch the other day and asked if I shouldn't be doing that in private. I think it's time to talk boarding school. Russian boarding school. But first, comrade, back to the subject at hand.

I think Beanie Babies are cute, cuddly little creatures, and I will admit to having spent a few of my hard- earned dollars on Beanies for my baby girl to play with (I can hear many of you screaming, "They're not meant to be played with!"). But never have I sat outside a McDonald's at two in the morning waiting for it to open so I could get an Egg McMuffin and a Teenie Beanie to go. And I apologize in advance if I insult anyone, but I think people who go to such great lengths to buy a child's toy need help. And that's what this column is all about.

You see, my sister, a normally sane, rational human being, is awash in the Beanie Baby craze. She has tiny synthetic pellets racing through her veins and they are starting to affect every facet of her life. She is the reason I am willing to break my vow of ignorance and speak out against these demons in plush clothing. The thought of her sitting outside a Hallmark store at three in the morning staring blindly at a dog- eared copy of "The Beanie Baby Bible" just sends chills down my spine. The woman needs help, my friends, and I am willing to take on the task at hand.

So, to help my dear sister and the millions of others who have fallen under the spell of Beanie Baby mania, I am officially founding Beanie Babies Anonymous, an organization dedicated to helping you just say no to Beanie Babies. BBA will follow a simple 4-step program designed to help even the most severely- addicted junkie kick his/her Beanie Baby habit.

Here are the 4 steps of BBA. Follow them to the letter and soon your life will be yours to live again:

Step 1)
Admit you have a problem: The first step in any recovery program is admitting that you have a problem. Here are the three warning signs of Beanie Baby Addiction. If you can relate to at least one of them, you are a Beanie Baby Junkie.
(1) You would willingly camp out all night outside a McDonald's in the highest crime district in town just to be the first in line on Teenie Beanie day.
(2) You have no qualms about snatching Beanie Babies from the hands of little children and if it makes them cry, well tough patootie! And
(3) If you can't swing a dead cat (is there a dead cat Beanie?) anywhere in your house without hitting a display of Beanie Babies, you have a problem. A big problem.

Step 2)
Admit that your addiction is harmful to others: You've probably been too busy feeding that Beanie Baby monkey on your back to notice that the rest of your life has gone to pot. Your addiction not only affects you, but those closest to you. Have your children moved in with relatives because you forgot to fix dinner eighteen nights in a row because you were busy dusting the tags in your Beanies' ears? Did you angrily take the family dog to the pound and order them to "Gas the SOB!" just because he growled at your Princess Di Beanie Bear? Have you been served with divorce papers that contain the phrase "refuses to consummate marriage because it would disturb Happy the Hippo's nap?" If so, you owe everyone you know a big apology, especially your dog, God rest his soul.

Step 3)
Cast the snake from the garden: This is perhaps the most difficult, yet most important mile marker on the road to recovery. This is where you rid your life of the furry, little monsters that have almost driven you to the point of no return. Follow my directions to the letter and do it quickly, without thinking, because if you stop to think about what you're doing, your addiction will take the upper hand and you will be lost again. With that in mind, here is the biggest step you must take: Box up every Beanie Baby you own, especially Peanut the Elephant and Brownie the Bear, and send them to me, Tim Knox, Director of Beanie Babies Anonymous, in care of this website. Send me your kids' Beanie Babies, too! I will take these vile creatures and dispose of them for you free of charge so that they will never infect the lives of normal people again. Don't forget, box them up and send them to me as soon as possible. I guarantee that both our lives will be enriched.

Step 4)
Spread the gospel to others: This is the final step in overcoming Beanie Baby Addiction. You must go out into the world and tell everyone you meet the story of your addiction. Give witness to the masses. Show them the light. Have them send their Beanie Babies to me. You are getting sleepy... Remember, if you can change the life of just one person and they in turn pass the message along to someone else, soon the world will be a sane place once again.

A "retired" Beanie Baby, one that has been taken out of circulation, can go for a thousand times its original cost. A complete collection of Beanie Babies (600 in all) is valued at $100,000. Here are the top ten most valuable.

As further proof of the need for an organization like Beanie Babies Anonymous,read the following transcripts and media accounts of how Beanie Baby Mania is affecting our world.

From the Disassociated Press:
OAK BROOK, IL (DP): Shares in McDonald's Corp. rose to a 52-week high Wednesday in response to the news that the fastfood giant will stop selling food effective immediately and will instead become the nations top retailer of Beanie Babies. McDonald's stock jumped over three dollars per share after the announcement. A company spokesman said, "Nobody wants our food anymore, but everybody wants Beanie Babies. The change just makes sense."

Tom Brokaw, NBC Nightly News:
"Addressing a large crowd in Lahore, Pakistan on Saturday, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif defended his country's decision to detonate six nuclear devices last week and said that Pakistan will continue nuclear testing until India signs the "No Nuke" test treaty and the Ty Corporation gives every man, woman and child in Pakistan a Nana the Monkey Beanie Baby. More now from Christiana Amonpour in Lahore..."

Bernard Shaw, CNN Headline News:
"This just in: Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr has announced that he is issuing subpoenas to executives of the Ty Corporation, the company that markets Beanie Babies. Starr claims his investigations have revealed that President Clinton gave Monica Lewinsky a 'Grunt the Razorback Pig' Beanie Baby as a gift after a sexual encounter in the White House."

Mike Wallace, 60 Minutes:
"The Ty Corporation, the company that sells Beanie Babies, is so secretive that not even the US government knows who is in charge. The company continually refused our requests for interviews and, in an anonymously-signed statement, said that, quote, '...if you do not immediately cease with your investigation into our operation we will have no choice but to send out a very large blue bear to bite your head off.' Unquote."

Dan Rather, CBS Evening News:
"Good evening. The bottom fell out of the Beanie Baby market today when it was revealed that the man in charge of the Ty Corporation, the mysterious company behind the popular line of plush toys, is none other than Microsoft CEO Bill Gates himself. Competing manufacturers of teddy bears and other plush toys have come out accusing Gates of trying to monopolize the plush toy industry, prompting the Justice Department to order an immediate investigation."

Alright, I made those up. But the following accounts are real, as reported by the Associated Press:

Forty guns were handed over to police in Kanakakee, Ill., in exchange for Teenie Beanie Babies, miniature versions of Beanie Babies given out by McDonald's as a Happy Meals premium. The no-questions-asked swap brought in 23 pistols and 17 shotguns in one day.

In an attempt to thwart the smuggling in of Beanie Babies available only in Canada, the U.S. Customs Service strictly enforces a one-Beanie rule. "A consumer is allowed to have one Beanie Baby for personal use every 30 days,'' says Customs officer Ralph Hackney. Any more are subject to seizure.

Customs agents seized an incoming shipment at O'Hare International Airport last December. Their catch: 456 imitations of Beanie Babies. Most were fake versions of "Grunt," the toy red razorback pig that is considered a collector's items and sells for as much as $130 each.

The Minnesota Better Business Bureau runs a Beanie Baby hotline to warn consumers of suspected counterfeits. Basketball's Philadelphia 76ers handed out 5,000 Beanies to children 12 and under during a game this year against the Golden State Warriors. It was only the second sellout game of the 76ers season. The other was against the Michael Jordan and the Bulls.

A crowd of thousands lined up outside a store in San Mateo, Calif., for the chance to buy new and retired Beanie Babies at below-market prices. The store gave out tickets, then called out random numbers. Those selected got to go in and buy the toys for $5.99 each.

Burglars broke into a suburban Chicago home in mid-April. They left the TV, stereo and most other valuables, but made off with a gold ring and a number of Beanie Babies, all valued at $4,000.

In Orange County, California, owners of a collectibles shop were treated and released for head injuries in early April after being clubbed with an iron barbell by thieves who made off with $6,000 worth of rare Beanie Babies.

The final divorce decree for Randy and Jan Staffan of Minneapolis stated that he got the house, much of its furnishings, and a few vehicles. She got to keep her salon business and half the couple's Beanie Babies.

Shocking, isn't it? Friends, let's stop this madness before it's too late.

Send those Beanie Babies to me today!

Tim Knox
Entrepreneur, Author, Speaker, Radio Host
Check Out Tim's New Radio Show! =>http://www.timknoxshow.com
Preorder Tim’s New Book =>Everything I Know About Business I Learned From My Mama http://www.timknox.com/amazon/

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