The History—and Value—of the Princess Diana Beanie Baby

Along with Furbies and the Nintendo 64, Beanie Babies were one of the most iconic toys of the ’90s. But while Furbies continue to plague parents to this day and Nintendo is still a heavy hitter in the gaming industry, the Beanie Baby craze didn’t make it past the Millennium.

Some Beanie Baby buyers were convinced the soft toys would be valuable down the line, and while the vast majority are only worth a couple of dollars at most these days, there are a few that sometimes sell for bigger bucks. And one bear stands head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to the money-making mythos of Beanie Babies: Princess the Bear, created to commemorate the death of Princess Diana.

The History of Princess the Bear

On August 31, 1997, 36-year-old Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in France. Diana Spencer joined the British Royal Family when she married Prince Charles—now King Charles III—in 1981. She was beloved by the public for her charity work and charismatic personality, leading to her becoming known as the People’s Princess.

The world mourned Diana’s unexpected passing. In October that year, the company Ty announced it would create a Beanie Baby in Diana’s memory, with proceeds going to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.

Called “Princess the Bear,” the toy was a regal purple color and featured a white rose on its chest (Diana was dubbed “England’s Rose” in the rewritten version of “Candle in the Wind” that Elton John sang at her funeral). The heart-shaped tag on Princess’s ear also featured a poem about Diana: “Like an angel she came from heaven above / She shared her compassion, her pain, her love / She only stayed with us long enough to teach / The world to share, to give, to reach.”

Princess launched in mid-December of 1997, but logistical constraints meant retailers were limited to orders of just 12 bears in the run up to Christmas. The toy’s original suggested price was $5–$7, but scarcity led to a surge in pricing, with a Washington Post article from December 24 reporting that the bear was selling for $400 and $350 at kiosks in Arlington, Virginia. Both buyers and sellers thought Princess was a limited edition, even though Ty Inc. soon flooded the market with the bears. But by then, the illusion that Princess was rare had taken hold—an illusion that has survived even to this day (but more on that later).

Dr. Amanda Gummer, founder of The Good Play Guide, told The Independent in 2023 that Ty Inc. frequently “used scarcity and exclusivity to create a sense of urgency and desire among consumers.” Ty Warner, the company’s CEO, was also a perfectionist and sometimes pulled toy designs after batches had already been shipped. This led to rare variations in designs—from fur color to tag misspellings—that Beanie Baby collectors were willing to splash out on. With Princess, there was a false perception among the public that they were all like gold dust.

Many people were convinced the supposedly rare bear would one day be worth a fortune and so kept Princess in pristine condition, ready for the day the toy could be sold to the highest bidder. 

How much is the Princess Diana Beanie Baby actually worth today?

If you type Princess Diana Beanie Baby into eBay, you might get the sense that the bear is incredibly valuable these days; one current listing is even selling the toy for the eye-watering price of $1 million. But just because people are listing Princess for these prices doesn’t mean people are actually paying that much. On rare occasions, the bear has sold for figures in the thousands—sometimes up to $25,000—but it’s far more common for the toys to go for around $5–$20.

The site tycollector.com breaks down the differences—and corresponding values—between the various versions of Princess. The rarest version of the bear was made in Indonesia, has a no-space swing tag (meaning there isn’t a space between the name of the charity and the rest of the writing on the tag), a Canadian customs tush tag, and is filled with PVC pellets rather than the far more common PE pellets. But even in mint condition, this version is only valued at $100–$200.

The site concludes it would take “something like a PVC-eating virus that is destroying all of the Princess Beanies in the world that were not protected in sealed plastic containers” to dramatically increase the value of the bear. Anyone with a Princess protectively stored away in the hope of one day making bank best bear that in mind whenever they see optimistically inflated prices on eBay and misleading headlines about garage sale finds being worth thousands.

While the high value of the Princess Diana Beanie Baby is merely a myth, for anyone who treasured the purple bear for more than its possible future price tag, the toy is surely priceless. And like the woman it honors, the toy did inspire goodwill: By the time Princess was discontinued in April 1999, Ty had reportedly donated $21,880,000 to charity from the sales.

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