Everything you always wanted to know about beanies,
but were afraid to ask!

Fun facts...no more, no less!

• Only six Beanies wear hats....1997 Teddy, 1998 Teddy, Santa, Zero, Wise and Snowball!

• The colored teddies are among the most sought after Beanies because each was only produced in relatively small amounts, on the order of 50,000 instead of the usual Beanie run of anywhere from 3-5 million. Only 250,000 of the 97 Teddy were ever produced.

• Seven beanies proudly wear flags....Libearty, Righty, Lefty, Maple, Britannia, Glory and the new Germania!

• There have been 6 major color changes in Beanies since their inception, the most notable being the Royal Blue Elephant and light blue Peanut. Also included are Digger Orange/Red; Happy Gray/lavender; Inky tan/pink; Lizzy tie-dyed/black and blue;& Patti maroon/magenta

• Since their introduction in January 1998, Rainbow and Iggy have had their tags switched. Now if they can add a tongue to Rainbow(tagged Iggy), can't they correct the tags?

• Over 38 of the current and retired Beanie Babies have brown as their primary color......guess Ty got a deal on the material!

• Doddle was retired due to a copy right infringement involving a certain Southern chain of chicken fast food restaurants. He was replaced by Strut...identical in every way, except for the tags.

• When first introduced May 1997, all shipments of both Echo and Waves were sent with both heart and tush tags switched.

• Ty currently has no fish in it's active line.....hmmm, could a tuna be next??????

• Libearty is the only Beanie to have a season listed, instead of an actual birthdate.(Summer 1996)

• Maple was originally to be named Pride and approximately 10,000 of them were shippped out with an incorrect tush tag.

• Once reported to not exist....despite frantic searches by Beanie hunters in the summer of 1996, Iridescent Horn Mystic is finally a reality.

• The "jewel" of the beanie collection has to be Royal Blue Peanut. He is the only Beanie with the deep, rich color blue, and was produced for only a few months, before they switched to the current version.

• Poor Quackers was originally introduced without wings....where did they put the heart tag? Ouch!!!!!

• On January 29th, both Sparky and Radar were retired for ONE day. Quickly, Ty, Inc. informed their reps they had decided Not to retire them, but that shipments would not be available until May 1997. It was a mess and both were retired in May of 1997.

• Sparky is the trademarked name given to the National Fire Protection Association's Dalmation mascot. Because of this, our Sparky was retired early and replaced with Dotty. Of course, during the change over, switched tags again occurred.

• One of the scarcest and strangest retired Beanies is Spot----without a Spot. That is one I'll never understand!

• Only 5 Beanie Babies are made out of "napped" fabric: Curly, Fleece, Tuffy, Scottie and the new Gigi! (And Scottie is retired...think he donated his "fur" to Gigi?)

• When Tusk the Walrus was released, some heart tags were mislabled "TUCK". This mistake is now worth between $15-25 more then plain, ole retired Tusk! In addition, some Tusks have their tusks pointing frontwards, rather than backwards.

• In the summer of 1996, Beaniemaniacs dicovered that some Magics (the Dragon) had hot pink stitching on their iridescent wings, rather than the normal light pink. These Magics are now very sought after, as they were available for only a few months.

• Of all the New Face Teddies, Teddy New Face Violet is the scarcest

• Tank the Armadillo, was chaged 3 times. It was rumored that the change from the initial longer, no shell version to the later smaller version, was instigated by Texas retailers. Them Lone Stars know their Armadillos.....maybe a bit too well. (j/k)

• Bones was the second dog to be introduced in the Beanie Baby line......the first was the notorious Spot without a spot.

• Trap the mouse, introduced in mid-1994, was a very small (palm size) gray mouse, with 4 pink legs, pink ears, pink tail and black thread whiskers....well, at least most of them had black whiskers. Some rare Traps can be seen with pink thread whiskers. Cherry sodas, maybe?

• As of May 1st, there were no more bunnies in the current Beanie line-up! Boy, Easter is gonna be tough!

For more great Beanie Trivia, DrSparky is in!