Princess Di Beanie Baby, is this still a kids toy?
December 24, 2011 11:01 AM Subscribe
Beanie Baby Appraisal Filter: How much is princess Di Beanie Baby Actually Worth? Ebay has one listed at $500,000... Heard of One Selling for $10,000...
Long story short, my niece was playing with my sisters old collection of beanie baby's. We joked around wondering if the beanie baby's were worth anything. Looked up one and found out it was worth $10. So let the niece keep playing, and laughed a little about how much it was worth. Later on, started looking at some tags, and she pulled off one tag which turns out it was the foot tall version of the princess Di beanie baby. The only thing we could do was roll on the floor laughing when we looked up how much it might be worth...
We still have the nine inch version which seems to be one of the originals (with tag), how much is it worth?
Help me properly appraise the value of the beanie baby.
Looking on ebay, this seemed to be the important things they mentioned... (below is what ours is)
Is the dark purple colour.
Manufactured in 1997, Indonesia. (not china, what does this mean)
Has the light green stem on the white rose.
Original Poem With No Extra Spacing.
No number inside the ass tag. Red star to left of TY logo.
Slight Crease in Tag.
Seen some saying it's worth $300, some saying it's worth $3000, some saying $500,000.
How much is it actually worth? (listed price, and actual highest sold version)
Is it the original, and if so how many are in circulation?
A side question, what are the most rare beanie baby's?
Long story short, my niece was playing with my sisters old collection of beanie baby's. We joked around wondering if the beanie baby's were worth anything. Looked up one and found out it was worth $10. So let the niece keep playing, and laughed a little about how much it was worth. Later on, started looking at some tags, and she pulled off one tag which turns out it was the foot tall version of the princess Di beanie baby. The only thing we could do was roll on the floor laughing when we looked up how much it might be worth...
We still have the nine inch version which seems to be one of the originals (with tag), how much is it worth?
Help me properly appraise the value of the beanie baby.
Looking on ebay, this seemed to be the important things they mentioned... (below is what ours is)
Is the dark purple colour.
Manufactured in 1997, Indonesia. (not china, what does this mean)
Has the light green stem on the white rose.
Original Poem With No Extra Spacing.
No number inside the ass tag. Red star to left of TY logo.
Slight Crease in Tag.
Seen some saying it's worth $300, some saying it's worth $3000, some saying $500,000.
How much is it actually worth? (listed price, and actual highest sold version)
Is it the original, and if so how many are in circulation?
A side question, what are the most rare beanie baby's?
I don't want to hurt your feelings, but odds are that your Beanie Babies are worthless. The Beanie Baby collector market is all but dead, and there are millions of mint condition Beanies sitting in plastic containers in storage units, attics, and basements all over the world, so it's very, very unlikely they will ever be worth any more than their play value down the road.
Where are you looking up your prices? The best way to get a real world price on anything is to look on eBay's completed auctions. Here are the completed auctions for various Princess Di Beanie babies. Of the 65 listings, only 6 sold, a success rate of less than 10% which suggests to me that there is very little demand.
posted by MegoSteve at 11:21 AM on December 24, 2011 [9 favorites]
Where are you looking up your prices? The best way to get a real world price on anything is to look on eBay's completed auctions. Here are the completed auctions for various Princess Di Beanie babies. Of the 65 listings, only 6 sold, a success rate of less than 10% which suggests to me that there is very little demand.
posted by MegoSteve at 11:21 AM on December 24, 2011 [9 favorites]
It's worth what someone is willing to pay, which sadly doesn't seem like much. If you have an eBay account, you can do a completed listings search which will show you what sold for how much in the last little while. I just did one for Princess Di beanie baby (so leaving out any specifics you mentioned) and they all seem to be pretty much worthless, the ones that sell go for 1 - 10 bucks.
On preview yeah.
posted by yellowbinder at 11:24 AM on December 24, 2011
On preview yeah.
posted by yellowbinder at 11:24 AM on December 24, 2011
Response by poster: Looking on ebay it appears that this is one of the originals and not second or 3rd generation. The original seems to be worth something, but not the 2nd / 3rd generation.
And yes the tag is still on the 9 inch beanie, not the 1.5 foot one unfortunately.
posted by MechEng at 11:42 AM on December 24, 2011
And yes the tag is still on the 9 inch beanie, not the 1.5 foot one unfortunately.
posted by MechEng at 11:42 AM on December 24, 2011
Response by poster: When I say worth something it looks about 100 to 300 price range. If anyone has any better input I'd like to hear it.
posted by MechEng at 11:46 AM on December 24, 2011
posted by MechEng at 11:46 AM on December 24, 2011
100 to 300? Where are you seeing that? Because when I look at completed auctions, as in MegoSteve's link, the highest successful auction I see is for $25.
If you take it to an antiques mall or similar, you can probably find someone relatively expert (or, at minimum, a current price guide).
Absent the arrival of a BB collector, though, searching completed eBay auctions (not current ones, since, as noted above, those are the prices that people are willing to charge rather than what people are willing to pay) is probably the best that most of the rest of us can do.
posted by box at 11:55 AM on December 24, 2011
If you take it to an antiques mall or similar, you can probably find someone relatively expert (or, at minimum, a current price guide).
Absent the arrival of a BB collector, though, searching completed eBay auctions (not current ones, since, as noted above, those are the prices that people are willing to charge rather than what people are willing to pay) is probably the best that most of the rest of us can do.
posted by box at 11:55 AM on December 24, 2011
It looks like one sold for just over $9000 last year, but it was a limited edition/numbered item (403 of 450). Nothing else has sold for over $80 from what I can see and actually most of them (relatively since there are still a lot of nobid closed auctions) are closing at under $20). Including numbered tags which makes that $9K one look suspicious.
short answer: squat
posted by lilnublet at 12:12 PM on December 24, 2011
short answer: squat
posted by lilnublet at 12:12 PM on December 24, 2011
My grandma sells stuff on ebay for other people and she decided to try to sell our old beanie babies. She had given them to us ages ago and we kept them in the boxes with tags intact because she just knew the time would come when they would be worth major $$$.
The ones that have sold all went for around $5. She actually bought 10 (I think, maybe less) of the Princess Di ones when they came out and she has managed to sell some of them, but not for much more than $5. Remember, she does this for a living. And they were completely unused, in there boxes, with tags, etc.
posted by pintapicasso at 12:32 PM on December 24, 2011
The ones that have sold all went for around $5. She actually bought 10 (I think, maybe less) of the Princess Di ones when they came out and she has managed to sell some of them, but not for much more than $5. Remember, she does this for a living. And they were completely unused, in there boxes, with tags, etc.
posted by pintapicasso at 12:32 PM on December 24, 2011
Best answer: Google Books is allowing me to preview part of Warman's Bean Plush Field Guide: Values and Identification by Dan Brownell, 2nd ed., which Google lists as being from 2008.
It has two entries for Princess, style 4300, which a general web and image search seems to indicate is the one produced for the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. It lists values of 7, 12, and 45 dollars - not sure what the different values represent as the legend explaining everything is inaccessible for me. Both entries list that doll's generation as 5. (Generation seems to be based on the formatting of the tags, which changed over the years?)
That price information would be from before the global financial crash, of course.
A note earlier in the book states "A plush toy's hang tag accounts for as much as 50 percent of its value," and gives guidelines for rating the condition of the tag.
posted by XMLicious at 12:34 PM on December 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
It has two entries for Princess, style 4300, which a general web and image search seems to indicate is the one produced for the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. It lists values of 7, 12, and 45 dollars - not sure what the different values represent as the legend explaining everything is inaccessible for me. Both entries list that doll's generation as 5. (Generation seems to be based on the formatting of the tags, which changed over the years?)
That price information would be from before the global financial crash, of course.
A note earlier in the book states "A plush toy's hang tag accounts for as much as 50 percent of its value," and gives guidelines for rating the condition of the tag.
posted by XMLicious at 12:34 PM on December 24, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Unfortunately the beanie baby market has died. They may be listing high, but they definitely aren't selling.
As to your other questions: Wikipedia says the ones with the China tags are the original and most valued of the Princess Di bears. Google searches turn up lists of the rarest ones.
posted by sm1tten at 4:06 PM on December 24, 2011
As to your other questions: Wikipedia says the ones with the China tags are the original and most valued of the Princess Di bears. Google searches turn up lists of the rarest ones.
posted by sm1tten at 4:06 PM on December 24, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by k8t at 11:18 AM on December 24, 2011