History of Beanbag Toys

Children have played with beanbag toys for over a century. These were popular because they were inexpensive and easy to make. Initially, they were filled with stones or dried beans.

Today when we think of beanbag toys, "Beanie Babies®" is the name that comes to mind. The name "Beanie Babies" is a trademark of the Ty Corporation, Inc., located in Oakbrook, IL.

Beanie Babies (also called "Bean Bag Plush") are adorable little critters filled with polyfill and PVC/PE pellets. Polyfill is cotton like fabric that is used to give the toy shape and the plastic pellets are small, round beads. These pellets are often referred to by dollmakers as "dolly beads."

In 1993, Ty Corporation, Inc. introduced this new line of small plush toys called Beanie Babies. They appeared in the company’s 1993 catalogue and were priced at $4.99 retail. The nine animals introduced were: Legs the Frog, Chocolate the Moose, Squealer the Pig, Splash the Whale, Flash the Dolphin, Pinchers the Lobster, Patti the Platypus, and Cubbie the Bear. These Bean Bag Plush were later dubbed the "original nine." They came with red heart-shaped tags. These tags later had a poem and the Beanie’s birthday written inside the swing tag.

Bean Bag Plush did not instantly become the hot collectable they are today. Many sat on shelves and in storerooms in small gift shops and florists. The Ty Company targeted small gift shops and toy retail outlets for Bean Bag Plush and usually shops that already carried their plush toy line.

In 1996, the market suddenly took off at a breakneck pace. Stores were completely selling out their stock of Bean Bag Plush, and savvy collectors who recognised the secondary market of these toys scoured shops in search of the early releases. The frenzy continued at a feverish pitch and even got to the point where some collectors confessed to following UPS trucks in order to get to the Bean Bag Plush first. Acquiring every style became the Beanie hunters’ mission, and there have been many tales of extreme measures in order to complete a collection.

There were predictions that the frenzy could not possibly last, yet Bean Bag Plush continued to be listed as one of the most sought-after collectables ever introduced. Several other companies quickly hopped on the band wagon and started producing their own versions of Bean Bag Plush.

Bean Sprouts and Puffkins were showing up on store shelves as an alternative to collectors who did not want to get into the fray of Ty Beanie Baby collecting. Disney and Warner Brothers have their own line of beanbag toys, and they have a huge following. There are countless others on the market and more being added all the time.

While collecting Ty Beanie Babies has not maintained the pace of a couple of years ago, there are thousands of collectors who keep the market going. With each McDonald’s promotion, there are many new collectors who are smitten by the thrill of the hunt, and their desire to complete a collection continues to drive the secondary market.

An interesting trend that has occurred is that a lot of collectors who have completed collections (with the exception of new releases) have moved into the Attic Collectables and larger plush collectables.

The most recent beanbag collectables are those that commemorate sports events. One of the rapid areas of growth is professional team give-a-way promotions. The Chicago Cubs first introduced these promotions with a card and Cubbie Bear. Since then, there have been many other Beanie promotions which have been hugely successful, often bringing record attendance at the games. The National Basketball Association, Women’s National Basketball Association, National Football League, and National Hockey League teams have all done promotions with commemorative cards.

Many sports card collectors who never cared to collect Bean Bag Plush want to attend games just to get the commemorative cards. There are still some great buys on these cards since the Beanie cards are just starting to gain popularity.

Beanie collectables are much like Hot Wheels cars, Matchbox cars, and Barbie® dolls. They have a huge base of collectors who will continue to collect and seek the rare ones on the secondary market for their collections. Their popularity comes and goes but the die-hard collectors will continue to fuel the interest in collecting for many years to come. There are hundreds of shows around the country on any given weekend, and collectors still come in record numbers to network with other collectors.

The preceding material was written by Myrtle Cecil. These are the opinions of the author, not the opinions of eBay, and therefore eBay does not validate the accuracy of or endorse these opinions.