Ty

He's a collector.

He is going to teach us so much about Beanie Babies history, the market for them, and the marketing schemes of the founder, Ty Warner.

If you want links to things we talked about, and there is a lot in this one, all of them will be in the show notes and you can find those at baskergardens.com. And one little plug to subscribe to the newsletter.

I've been writing a form of this newsletter for over 10 years.

And then most of the stores would keep them at $500.

But sometimes they would go up to $700.

And an interesting thing to point out was Ty Warner, the founder of the company, he would only sell to small retail stores.

He would not sell to big box stores.

They're in, uh, our, um, uh, our trauma cabinet.

And, uh, and ba- in the back corner there's like a TY S- TY Beanie Baby sized-

Uh-huh

... um, like stuffed-

too.

And I'm from Chicago where T.Y. was from.

Wait,

T.Y.? Are we supposed to say T.Y.? I was called Ty.

I heard

it both ways.

Wanting to see the immediate aftermath and finally getting it is going to be awesome.

Another tie, but tie with a T-Y.

We know tie spells their name with a T-A-I.

When I see tie T-Y, I think tie beanie babies, which were actually a huge thing back in the 90s.

Fun fact, little diversion here.

I worked in an educational toy store.

And also I wish I had kept my collection because some of those, like the Princess Diana one, are definitely worth something, although not as much as they were back in the height.

Are we going to see Beanie Babies or am I just completely off the rails here? I don't know.

And then even more of a story tale is that...

The San Diego Ranch is owned by Ty Warner, who made Beanie Babies.

If you remember, it said Ty on the ear tags, T-Y.

Yep.

Yeah, that's who it was named after.

Yes, before Labubus, there were Beanie Babies.

Ty Inc., a small company at the time, had introduced them the year before.

They were simple, understuffed plastic pellets.

They could flop around, bleh, bleh, bleh, instead of just sitting stiff like most plush toys.

I mean, nothing about that sounds revolutionary, but the marketing strategy was.

In 1994, Ty began retiring certain designs, quietly pulling them from stores, making them unavailable.

You know what that did? It built a sense of scarcity.

Suddenly parents weren't just buying toys for their kids; they were hunting collectibles.