how many got hooked???

I'm a late collector. I only started collecting about a year or two ago. For my little neice. She is crazy about them, she is 10 now. She scours ebay for deals on beanies, we find them at thrift stores. She actually knows which ones and how many of each one she has. I bought her books so she can learn about the value of them. I'm learning right along with her. We have 4 of those huge plactic tubs full of beanies, mostly the beanie babies. But she has the bigger beanies too, a couple of authenticated ones I bought for her for special occassions, like Christmas and birthday. We keep saying we are going to sell the extra's but we never take time to do that. We are too busy still collecting. They are sooo cute. I don't know why I didn't get in on the initial beanie rush when they first came out.I think my 1st beanie was one my son bought for me, it was the Princess Diana beanie baby. I will always treasure that one.

I absolutly love beanie babies! I think they are the cutest line of stuffed animals ever! The are so cute, and I remember I was around 8 or so when I got my first one from LE, a pink phlamengo. (Im not a good speller :) ) Anyways I sure know that you were a "beanie fanatic" hehe ;D

I most certainly got hooked. I started buying them for my 2 granddaughters in 1998, bought myself one (Chip the calico cat, because he reminded me of a cat I used to have when I was younger). Well, the granddaughters stopped collecting at the end of 1999 and I continued. I have over 700 beanies in my collection...many of them are country exclusives or for special events. I made many online friends from the US and overseas during my collecting days. I even won a set of 6 Asian exclusives in a drawing one time. That was a nice surprise. I am no longer collecting beanies (stopped after Hurricane Wilma hit us in Oct 2005), but still have my collection. My last one that I bought was the Midwest Airlines chocolate chip beanie since we fly Midwest to Kansas City every year to see my sister. Had to have that one. One year we decorated our Christmas tree with only the teenie beanies, and we loved the look of it. This year I sent all of the teenies to a friend who had a smaller tree and needed decorations. She also loves stuffed animals, so it was doubly special for her to get them. I enjoyed the craze when it was most popular and miss a lot of it now. I imagine one day I'll consider selling off my expensive ones and donating the others to a children's hospital.

Although I do have a few here from various occassions I never really collected them. I couldn't understand the craze to be honest. My neice won a full set of one of the Macdonald's animals they gave away. Still in the wrapper and everything. We packed those away where as the others she'd gotten from the happy meals she played with.

I bought a $35 Dachsund once.This was about 15 years ago.I was collecting back then but I do not anymore.I have tons of them somewhere in the basement.

I'm not really a collector, but did work in a shop selling beanies and buddies for a while and that was crazy! Sometimes the customers were in very long lines and desperate to get their beanie fix. I had an employee discount and therefore could not resist buying a few for myself. Maybe I should sell some of them on eBay or something.

I have never collected them but I do hoard things , I have seen them on the bid up channels and they are just soo cute , I love the way they all have wee poems on them xx

Well when the Beanie Baby craze was at it's peak (atleast around here) I was a young girl (probably 11 years old) and the funny thing is that it was my older sisters and my mother who were crazy over them...I couldn't have cared less. They weren't crazy enough to be at a store by 5:30 AM though (hehe), but they were constantly calling stores to see if they had new shipments in and my mom even had my dad make her a special cabinet just so she could fit them all in. I remember really liking the "Peace Bear" (the one that was really colorful).

Sorry i am no fanatic or hook on the beanie baby. I just wanted to comment you bout getting up at 5 30 in the morning to get a ticket. Thats dedication to the subject. as for me i dont see myself in doing anything like that just for some toy, doll, or games.

I walked two miles to McDonald's to get the teenie beanies when they were released. I thought I would be the only person there but there were a couple other people waiting outside. When they opened the doors everyone started laughing - we had to fight with regular food customers to get to the counter. Like there was going to be a fill out war between the breakfast people and the beanie lovers.

I was one of those fools that waited outside McDonalds when they had the Beanie promotions. I still have most of them as well as the Halloween ones. I had to get rid of most of them when I moved but it wasn't the big of a deal. My favorite, Batty The Bat!

No, but my daughter wanted a panda beanie one year for Christmas and she was very disappointed when she didn't get it. I thought I tried hard until I just read your post, but now I feel guilty because I didn't go the distance. LOL

I never got interested in them, but my youngest son made a small fortune with them. He and his wife have a gift shop, and they sold enough beanies to pay for the ten acre lot where they built their house. Now, he practically has to give them away to get rid of them.

I never got hooked on that one at all. I don't really know why! I am that kind of person. My kids used to have a really rare one and everyone who collected them would freak out everytime they saw my daughter with it!!!

O for me

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I bought my son a the shark and it turned into an obsession, we still have large containers of them. I would like to believe that someday they will increase i value again. I think it suck that Ty is selling retired ones again. I think they were great toys, I remember talking about them with my sitter who said there were much less problems with the boys when they played with beanies then with other toys. I still buy them for myself. One year we decorate our Christmas tree with beanies.