Category Archives: collectible toys

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.

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Mechanical Toys

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Toy metal bodies with spring mechanisms to propel them have been around for decades. They are related to the automata built for royalty in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At that time elaborate geared mechanisms were created to amuse heads of state. These included the singing bird in a cage and mechanisms that delivered sweets down the long dining tables of the time. The armillary sphere developed to show the position of the stars and earth is a scientific use of a mechanical drive train to demonstrate the real world as it was understood at the time.

A wind-up toy from the recent past.

By the nineteenth century small, less complicated mechanisms were built into toys. Methods of travel were a favorite motif, as seen here with two toys based on motorcycles.

Another motorcycle.

Another motorcycle.

With the arrival of the scientific age, robots became a subject for the mechnical toy maker.

The 1950's robot mechanical toy.

Cuckoo clocks use weights to drive their mechanisms. There are many clocks that still use this method of motivation, which has also been around for centuries.

The cuckoo clock of the Black Forest.

Since then the materials of choice have changed from metal to plastic, and these toys are still made today.

Metal hopping chick. You can still find these today, made of plastic or with stuffed bodies.

The late twentieth century and twenty-first century version of these toys would be the motion activated toys that sing, dance, howl, clutch or yodel. The Macarena ape that sings and dances, and Billy Bass that turns half-way from his mounting board to sing. There are mounted reindeer heads that sing Christmas carols, candy bowls that swat at anyone taking a piece of candy at Halloween, and all sorts of critters that make their signature sound when triggered. These automata are battery-operated, and as such, always react on queue, although they usually have an on/off switch to deactivate them when there is a lot of activity within their sphere of observation.

For some of us, the joy of mechanical toys never grows old, and the toy manufacturers still make them for us.

So, the next time you are at a store, with either new merchandise or antiques, look for mechanical toys, and surprise a youngster with it. Or keep it yourself and start a collection of your own. They will make you smile.

* * * Find information about cheap baby toys. * * *

* * * More about computer usb toys. * * *

* * * For something completely different, read about sleigh beds. * * *

* * * Read about collecting dog toys. * * *

* * * Read about collecting cat toys. * * *

* * * Read about collecting bird toys. * * *

The images on this post are from Stock Xchnge.

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