Category Archives: collectible toys

Ty Beanie Kids

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There are 24 Ty Beanie Kids. They introduced a human element into the Ty line of toys in 2000. With a variety of skin and hair colors, they are identified by name in the catalog. They appear to be past the toddler stage, and maybe five or six years old. They have removable clothes, called Ty Gear, and additional clothes can be purchased.

This appears to be Ty’s entry in the baby doll section of the toy store. They are represented as older than a baby, but they have the clothing option in play (and cost). Their faces are differentiated to some extent so they all do not look like clones, which is a nice feature. With the variety in skin, expression and hair color and style, the likelihood of a youngster finding his own reflection in one of the dolls is pretty good.

Apparently the dolls did not become popular, so Ty has retied all the dolls. The clothing, which came in activities, like Soccer or Summer Fun, or as costumes for Halloween, has also been retired. Both the dolls and the clothes are still available online and may be available at resale shops or flea markets near you. For a list of the Ty Gear, I found this page helpful. This site has a lot of information about all of the Ty product lines.

As usual with Ty, the kids were announced as limited, but for most of the figures there are plenty to go around. Baby 2002 is supposed to be rare. Baby-e was released in time for the beginning of 2003, and was the last figure released.

For collecting Ty products, this might be a good choice. As the line is closed, there should be no additional dolls or clothes, so some effort to find them should result in a complete collection or nearly complete collection in a relatively short time. As they were not that popular, the prices may be discounted as well. One or two dolls may be more expensive and harder to find, but that’s part of the game of collecting.

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Beanie Kids

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What is a beanie kid? The latest move in the bean-bag toy competition. Designed and made by the Skansen Giftware Company in Australia, this series of characters resemble the Ty Beanie Baby teddy bears, except they have non-removable clothes, a name and a birthday. In this, they are a cross between the Cabbage Patch dolls and Ty’s Beanie Babies. There are at least five sizes/types of Beanie Kids: Beanie Kids, Cuddly Kids, Great Big Kids, Tiny Beanie Kids and Giant Big Kids, as well as Special Releases, which includes a mutations category. Errors?

The figure is not always a teddy bear, but can be another animal. like a tiger or dog. A few are based on Australia’s indigenous animals, like the kangaroo, wallaby and platypus. Some are teddy bears in costumes to become other animals, like a sheep, donkey or rabbit. Teddy bears are also dressed in ethnic costumes to represent other countries. Representatives of folk tales, holidays and vocations are also included. The line seems to cover all the bases usually covered by dolls of any kind.

The attached rectanglar, hinged tag on the Beanie Kids includes the character’s name, birth date and Zodiac sign. Like most collectibles, keeping the tag on the character and in good condition is important to future value (?). Special storage boxes and tag protectors are available to protect the toys and tags. The line introduces new characters regularly, and retires others to keep the number of any one character “limited”. Special characters are issued as well. Design contests are run in Australia for new designs. Other merchandise with Beanie Kid representatives is also available, including non-plush figurines, backpacks, tumblers, beach towels, pillows, pajamas, caps, socks, etc.

The company runs fan clubs on its web site: http://www.beaniekids.com/home.html. All the Beanie Kids are pictured, 25 per page, 35 pages and counting. The web site lists the toys for whom today is their birthday. There are also games and a seven day weather report from Beanie Island, current population 999, meaning if you started today, you are already over 900 toys behind. The toys are not sold on the company site. You have to buy the BKs from a toy store.

Seems like the Skansen Giftware Company is taking a page from other manufacturers in creating a line of toys that never ends and is nearly impossible to collect one each. By introducing a birth date, the company in encouraging children can search for other BKs (as they are called) with the same birthday (as stated on the website). Between costumes, “regular” clothes, animal, countries and all the other permutations, this is really going to be a large collection, and one you will probably never be able to complete, not to mention expensive. If you are really interested, or your child gets caught up in the frenzy, check out the collector cards and collector’s guides (quarterly) and let someone else collect all the plushies.

The Ty Company (heart shaped tag), the originators of the Beanie Baby animals, that were so cute and ha such good designs, not produces a human baby form. I will write on that next.

Go to the Table of Contents to see all the topics covered so far.

Click American collectibles to go to the latest entry on this site.