Planning to Get Rich Off Those Beanie Babies? So Sad, Too Bad

Bad, sad news: You’re never gonna get rich off your heavily curated Beanie Baby collection.

Right out of high school, I worked at a children’s toy store for a couple months. It was at the height of the Beanie Baby craze, and my old high school drama teacher — who, btw, was the most terrifying and amazing woman on Earth (to me) (at the time) (think, IRL Ursula the Sea Witch) found out I was working at around BB’s (industry term) and would harass me to put them on super secret hold for her. It was totally against the rules, but I did it anyway. What can I say? This is the same woman who told me I needed to dye my naturally red hair black to play an aristocrat in my high school’s production of Evita, and I did that shit, too.

I estimated that this woman put at least $500 into her BB collection in the short time I worked at the store, but she was sure she’d make every penny back and then some$$$. Looking at this breakdown of how well the Beanie Babies aged, I’m gonna guess that never happened. Ah, the sweet/disgusting excess of the late 90s.