Retire if You Have These Beanie Babies-Fiction!
Summary of eRumor:
Claims that the top 10 most valuable Beanie Babies are worth tens of thousands of dollars and you can probably retire if you have them have gone viral.
Truth:
Sadly, claims about Beanie Babies being worth thousands of dollars just aren’t true.
Questions about the value of the Princess Diana Beanie Baby have persisted every since the little plush bear was issued after her death in the 1990s.
We already took an extensive look at what was driving rumors that the Princess Diana Beanie Baby was so valuable (you can read it here). Unfortunately, we found that it’s usually worth $27-$47 dollars depending on where it’s made.
In August 2016, the website XoBenzo breathed new life into old rumors about the value of Beanie Babies that appeared under the headline, “If You Have Any of These 11 Beanie Babies, You Can Retire Now…”
That story reported that the Princess Diana Purple Bear first edition was selling for $75,000, the Curly Bear Original Beanie Baby was selling for $24,500, the Peace Bear was selling for $5,000, the Valentino Beanie Bear was selling for $19,000 and on and on…
It’s true that some Beanie Babies are worth more than others, but prices cited above are incredibly inflated.
The Original 9 Beanie Babies are generally considered valuable. Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant can fetch upwards of $1,000, Old Face Teddy Bear has fetched $2,8000, Chef Robuchon is the highest selling Beanie Baby ever at $7,353, and Humphrey the Camel is valued at about $2,000, according to Ebay’s Top 10 Most Valuable Ty Beanie Babies.
Generally, the market on Beanie Babies is hard to pin down. Because they’re only worth as much as a collector is willing to pay rumors tend to run rampant about how much a given stuffed toy has sold for, and it’s hard to confirm the actual values.
Making matter worse, is that scammers play into that and often try to artificially drive up the prices of Beanie Babies by posting them on Ebay for hundreds (or thousands) of dollars more than they’re actually worth.
If you’re going to buy a collectable Beanie Baby, the best advice is to consult multiple sources about how much it’s actually worth to avoid scams.