12 Media Accounts of Beanie Babies Hysteria, Circa the 1990s

Ty Warner had struck gold. In 1996, his Beanie Babies had surpassed $250 million in sales, creating a phenomenon that was unlike anything the toy industry had ever seen. Millions of stuffed animals were methodically captured and stored in plastic, expected to mature in value like a war bond. For a time, it seemed U.S. currency would soon convert from paper to plush.

This never happened. Instead, some people went bankrupt investing in Beanies, ignoring the paradox of what it means to own a manufactured collectible. But prior to the Great Beanie Fallout, it was difficult to open a magazine or newspaper and not read about how you, too, could fund a child’s college education by stocking up on Kiwi the Toucan. If you weren’t around—or simply chose to forget—here are a few media snapshots of the Beanie fever that gripped a nation. (And if you still have your Beanie Baby collection, here are some tips for how to sell them.)

1. Leading to a Life of Crime

“I had one customer who told me her car was broken into because she had a retired Beanie Baby sitting on the dashboard …The thieves didn't touch the radio.”

— The New York Times, March 14, 1997

2. As Courtroom Spectacle

“A divorced couple who couldn't agree on how to split up their Beanie Baby collection were ordered by a judge Friday to divide up the babies one by one in a courtroom. Maple the Bear was the first to go ... 'I don't agree with the judge's decision to do this. It's ridiculous and embarrassing,’ Frances Mountain said moments before squatting on the courtroom floor alongside her ex-husband to choose first from a pile of stuffed toys.”

—Associated Press, November 6, 1999

3. The Beanie as Car Dealership Trade-In

“Kelly Flagg, 14 … began collecting Beanie Babies as toys when they were introduced in 1993. She buys duplicates to trade, some of which are now valuable enough to barter for big-ticket items … she intends to sell the collection to buy a Corvette.”

—The New York Times, October 30, 1997

More Articles About Beanie Babies:

4. Creating Financial Advisors

"Basically, if you can afford to do this, simply putting away five or 10 of each and every new Beanie Baby in super mint condition isn't a bad idea."

—The Beanie Baby Handbook, 1998

5. No Child is Safe

"In a way, it was a good thing the weather was so-so for the first-ever Beanie Baby swap and sale held Thursday at Jacobs Beach by the town's parks and recreation department … [Pam] Ertelt's 6-year-old daughter, Meryl, was injured in the mad rush for the popular toys. Someone in a big hurry to get to the Beanie Baby sale crashed into the little girl as she and her mother were walking to the tent, leaving the youngster with a bloody leg.”

—The Hartford Courant, June 27, 1997

6. Bearing Witness to the Horror

“During several Beanie Baby quests, my son was trampled by a herd of women racing to the shelves to capture an endangered animal—the last Ziggy the Zebra, perhaps. And I have witnessed younger children, near tears, leaving shops empty-handed while someone else's grandma carried home a bag bulging with her latest Beanie bounty.”

—, March 9, 1998

7. Crowd Control

"In pastoral Lancaster, Pa., where the Amish still ride buggies, a McDonald's manager summoned police when Teenie buyers got out of control. ‘I responded and observed approximately 50 people standing inside,’ Officer Delene Brown wrote in her report. ‘They said they were waiting for Zip cats to go on sale. The employees said the cat will not be sold until all the Dobie dogs are gone, and there were still over 100 dogs to be sold.’”

—The Washington Post, June 8, 1998

8. As a Sophisticated Smuggling Operation

“As long as the Beanie Babies are for personal use and people buy no more than three of the same kind, crossing over the Canadian border with more than one Beanie Baby won't be a problem anymore, said Kathy Lisius, supervisory import specialist for the U.S. Customs Service … The restrictions come at a time when Beanie Baby smuggling has dramatically increased. More than 8100 have been confiscated since February at the Blaine crossing. ‘Last year, we didn't detain any Beanie Babies,’ Lisius said. ‘Now, people are smuggling Beanie Babies in similar places where they hide drugs, such as hidden compartments and the spare tire holders.’”

—The Seattle Times, July 18, 1998

9. Dubious Financial Advice, Part Two

“Richard Gernady, a purveyor of collectibles, received a phone call in December that he will not soon forget. The caller, a middle-aged insurance agent from New York who was fed up with some underperforming stocks in her portfolio, told him she intended to sell them and reinvest the capital in a different class of assets: Beanie Babies. Ultimately she spent $12,000 on ‘all my best Beanies,’ recalled Gernady, owner of the Cat's Meow shop in Glenview. ‘I told her she was doing the right thing.’”

—, June 23, 1998

10. Death by Beanie

“In October 1999, Jeffrey White, then 29, shot security guard Harry Simmons, 63, at a lumberyard in Elkins, W.Va, a small town where people used to line up at 4 a.m. outside the Hallmark store when a Beanie Babies shipment was due. Police said that White, who later confessed to the crime, blamed Simmons for getting him fired from his job at the lumberyard. But the two also had a dispute over $150 and several hundred dollars' worth of Beanie Babies that Simmons lent White, purportedly to start a trading business.”

—, August 31, 2004

11. The Beanie Forger

“A woman named Lu Venia recently had a 'Peanut' sent to her Beanie repair shop in Warrenton, Va. A self-described ‘Beanie Doctor,’ she examined its suspiciously crusty coat of polyester plush and realized something was seriously wrong. ‘The blue dye came right off,’ recalls Venia, who discovered that the toy was a much-less-valuable Light Blue Peanut dipped in dark blue dye. 'I felt terrible telling that collector that she got a rotten Peanut,' Venia says.”

—The New York Times, July 5, 1998

12. At Least It's Not Drugs

“The Wards, of Northeast Philadelphia, have more than 500 Beanies. They said they spent Memorial Day weekend last year in McDonald's eating Happy Meals, three meals a day, to get every limited edition Teenie Beanie, and plan to do the same thing this year … Their daughter, Kris White, said she was a little worried about them. 'She buys them clothes,’ she said of her mother. ‘They have them all over the house. She just bought the one in the kitchen a special chef's outfit.’

“Dave Ward shrugged. ‘It's better than gambling or drugs, right?’' he said. ‘And we have it under control now. We only spend about $500 a month on Beanies.’”

—, May 17, 1999

A version of this story was published in 2015; it has been updated for 2022.