How much to sell my collection of over 100 TY Beanie Babies for?

RFW

I took a load of new books to a weigh in place, I ended up getting about a penny each for them, that was after them arguing that they wouldn't take them because they were all new and only two titles.

In the US, Half Price Books sell some books by the yard, for theatres, show houses, tv, etc to put out for decoration. If I remember right they sell them in genre or colours or just random. I'd assume someone does it here.

Valli

IMO people (those who have bought stuff) assume the value of an item is relative to what was paid for it.

A more realistic valuation is what someone will offer for it!

pulliptears

Very much doubt eBay drove the price of Beanies down as at the time eBay was fuelling the ridiculous prices towards the late 90's.

I worked in a toy shop at the time that sold them and the young kids that bought them and saved hard to buy the rares were fervent about the things. We had a rule that to buy a rare you needed to have already bought something like ten standard bears. Some folk would come in when we had a delivery and just grab ten of anything to get the 'rare'. Utter madness.

At the end of the day though it was just a craze, and those kids who were so fervent back then are now of the age to leave home so their collections are being rediscovered and they sadly think they are about to make their fortunes. Shame really, some were quite cute.

RFW

pulliptears wrote: »

Very much doubt eBay drove the price of Beanies down as at the time eBay was fuelling the ridiculous prices towards the late 90's.

I worked in a toy shop at the time that sold them and the young kids that bought them and saved hard to buy the rares were fervent about the things. We had a rule that to buy a rare you needed to have already bought something like ten standard bears. Some folk would come in when we had a delivery and just grab ten of anything to get the 'rare'. Utter madness.

At the end of the day though it was just a craze, and those kids who were so fervent back then are now of the age to leave home so their collections are being rediscovered and they sadly think they are about to make their fortunes. Shame really, some were quite cute.

It is true that they had always been sold on Ebay, but in the early days of both companies there was a smaller market and they both grew. Obviously Ebay isn't the only factor but the rarity factor has been greatly diminished by Ebay. Ty seemed to have messed up their own market too. More recently moving into licensing deals, that will help their profitability but diminish the exclusive factor.

ineed

I used to collect these as a child, Halo the angel bear and Genevieve the fluffy white cat were my favourites . I still have a few but didn't expect they'd be worth anything, it was a craze like anything else. I also remember Furby and virtal pets, Aliens in goo filled plastic test tubes and eggs, Pokemon cards and spice girl photos and albums also being all the rage and different points while growing up, good memories .

themull1

charlies_mum wrote: »

I used to sell Beanie Babies and at their peak some were going for rediculous amounts. Even Britannia bear which used to sell for £100, is now on EBay for 99p

If I ever do a car boot, I take some and sell them for 50p each, and even then it is slow.

We hired a skip recently for some building work, and I ended up throwing some brand new ones in there to get rid of them.

Could you not have taken them to a charity shop?

charlies_mum

themull1 wrote: »

Could you not have taken them to a charity shop?

You haven't read all the thread, have you ?

mrsHall2b

ineed wrote: »

I used to collect these as a child, Halo the angel bear and Genevieve the fluffy white cat were my favourites . I still have a few but didn't expect they'd be worth anything, it was a craze like anything else. I also remember Furby and virtal pets, Aliens in goo filled plastic test tubes and eggs, Pokemon cards and spice girl photos and albums also being all the rage and different points while growing up, good memories .

we must be about the same age oh the crazes we had. pogs too!

Contains_Mild_Peril

soolin wrote: »

Then my Oxfam must be unique then. I take a lot there and they allow me to pull my car up to a back loading door, where they have the big skips full to the brim of things they don't want. On any day they are full of mainly books and records , but also clothes toys, lots of stuffed toys . They aren't there to be sent elsewhere as the skips are often open to,the elements so the stuff inside is ruined.

Really? Are you sure the skips are Oxfam's? If they are I think yours actually is unique, and if not unique it's certainly very unusual. Oxfam has its own textile recycling company: clothes and other textiles (including cuddly toys) which aren't sold locally are sent to a big plant for sorting. Some are redistributed to specialist shops (e.g. vintage shops, and stalls at festivals where customers will pay amazing prices for a decent pair of wellies), some are sent abroad, and some are shredded to make things like carpet underlay.

Oxfam also sells other items to other recycling companies, usually for very little money but it's better than them paying for it to go to landfill. The company which collects books from my local Oxfam pays £1 per box (recycling company supplies the boxes). When I see eBay listings for very cheap secondhand books, CDs etc where multiple copies of many titles are available, I imagine these are companies which buy charity shop overstock in bulk and have huge warehouses and special deals with Royal Mail. Of course I still expect that most of the books sent for recycling get pulped.

About the Beanie Babies, there are a few popular rare ones that are still quite saleable, but most are worth only pennies. They are cute and parents do still buy them for kids to play with if they're cheap enough (e.g. 3 for 99p in charity shop).

Value is a matter of supply and demand. With Beanie Babies, lots of people bought them when they were popular and kept them in pristine condition, and now they're out of fashion, supply is high relative to demand so prices are low. Given long enough, supply will drop as many get de-tagged and given to children to play with and/or thrown away, and they will eventually acquire nostalgia value and demand is likely to rise at least a little. I'm pretty sure the prices of the height of the craze will never be repeated, but if I had a collection I'd be inclined to store them away for years (I'm probably talking a lot of years) to await a revival. If that's not for you, selling as a bundle on Gumtree, Facebook or even eBay might work. 99p-start auction may be the best tactic on eBay: you won't make a fortune but they're virtually guaranteed to sell.

sidefx

soolin wrote: »

When I sold books I used to have an arrangement with a charity shop that I could go in to their stock room and take whatever books I wanted for 3p a book, I did very well out of it. The ones I didn't want tended to go and be pulped.

The local hospice shop had the same arrangement with a dealer I knew at the time, except he got 1p a book offered but had to take them basically by weight , unsorted.

I find that very depressing.