baby dolls hats

Beanie Babies began production in 1993 and went into full production in 1994. They didn’t really catch on until the second half of 1995. In 1996, “Miniature Beanies launched with McDonald’s Happy Meals. Everyone, including Mom and Dad, loved them.” Their popularity got to the point that even immigrants within the US were selling Beanie Babies at swap meets.

Collectors bought Beanie Babies from 1996 to 1999 to resell them and they got to the point where they were no longer a valuable commodity to get a good return on an investment in. On December 31, 1999, Ty had to shut down production due to oversaturation on the used market. Nobody wanted them anymore. At the height of popularity, 10% of eBay sales were “Beanie Babies.”

Jan. 2. 2000 Ty began production of the Beanie Babies again two days after they stopped production. Some say the reboot was due to lawsuit and others say the reboot was due to economic ploy by Ty. I can safely say that the second-hand market was flooded with Beanie Babies to the point where they couldn’t be given away, “even if you begged someone to take them away.” Ty restarts production Jan. 2 of 2000, two days after they ceased production, they were in limited quantities so people couldn’t put them up for sale the same day they bought them and saturate the second-hand market to the point of collapse in value.

Beanie Baby Common Cards

* 1st Edition, Series 1 November 1998

* 1st Edition, Series 2 March 1999

* 2nd Edition, Series 3 July 1999

* 2nd Edition, Series 4 November 1999

The Beanie Baby cards did not appear until November 1998 and were dead on arrival until early 1999 when it was announced that the cards would be retired. After the cards were removed, the remaining inventory was quickly depleted. After the announcement that they were withdrawn, causing them to quickly sell out, Ty released the series 2 cards in March 1999.

Beanie Babies Cards Issue 1 Series 1 had 504,000 boxes produced as of early November 1998 and the cards didn’t look that good. It was just images superimposed on images which was old technology. In 1994, the sports card industry was producing trading cards that went beyond the simple design produced by Ty. My guess is that this is why Ty’s trading cards died on the shelf until, of course, they were retired.

594,000 first edition series 2 box sets were produced and released in March 1999 and sold out before they reached retail store shelves. The cards that hit retail shelves had purchase limitations and higher prices. The first edition series 1 cards were poorly designed at low cost and have no appeal at all, and you can see that the same poor design quality was maintained in the first edition series 2 cards due to the popularity of physical dolls.

In July 1999 the second edition series 3 cards were released. 751,332 boxes were released. The graphics were updated and more pleasing to the eye. This series of cards is very easy on the eyes and will probably be a most desirable card for the average collector. If it’s design quality you’re after, the 2nd Edition Series 3 cards are where you want to be. The backgrounds are not as blurry and the text is outlined in 3D. Series 1 and 2 are a huge disappointment in design technology that was produced on sports and comic cards in the second half of the 1990s.

November 1999 saw the last release of the Beanie Baby trading cards. The second edition of series 4 released 620,000 boxes of cards to the public. These cards continued the same design quality as the 2nd Edition Series 3 cards. As stated above, in December 1999 Ty announced the end of Beanie Baby dolls and with that also came the end of letters. Although Ty produced limited quantities of Beanie Babies in January. from 2000 the cards to this day have never returned.

Beanie Baby cards can still be had for $1.00 to $5.00 each on eBay, Ecrater, and other card marketplaces, depending on the seller. These cards are severely undervalued due to the lack of appeal that caused the overproduction of Beanie Baby dolls. At the time of this article, going to eBay to find these cards will produce very few results for each individual card desired. You’d expect to find hundreds and hundreds of these cards on eBay from a variety of sellers, but that’s not the case. Or have people stopped trying to sell the cards they had or just don’t have any to sell?

These cards, all series, were only produced for 1 year. November 1998 to November 1999 is for all Beanie Babies past and present. Sports cards, comic cards can have every player or character produced every year for many years. Not so for Beanie Babies. These cards are a collectible single year production of an extremely popular Ty product. There are many small trading card sets on the second hand market that were only produced once and due to lack of popularity are not reproduced.

Will these Beanie Baby cards ever catch up with the popularity of the dolls that made them possible? If I were to speculate on this, I would say that these cards will one day come close to the popularity that dolls have. Will it happen in my lifetime? As for anything collectible, this question cannot be answered. Popularity is something that happens through the thought of each individual multiplied into many. The only realistic thought that can be formulated is based on past popularity collectible items that have gained the current popularity and that one day in the future you will recognize these collectible cards as an image of a past popular item that will add value to the cards when they are recognized.