|
Ty®
is most widely known for its Beanie
Babies®, which erupted into the collectibles
market in the late 1990's as, almost certainly, the hottest
collectible item ever. The Beanie Baby® phenomenon, known
as "beaniemania," found collectors vying for retired
beanies, all of which originally sold at retail stores for
$5 to $7, with a frenzy that drove prices of some of the rarest
beanies above $5000. In fact, eBay owes its initial success
to its role as a central trading venue for retired Beanie
Babies®. The frenzy may be gone, but with a huge base
of collectors, Beanie Babies® endure as one of the most
popular collectible items.
Besides Beanie Babies®, Ty® has produced a series
of other popular lines. Beanie
Buddies™ are
larger versions of the Beanie Babies®. Ty® began with
plush cats in the mid-1980's, and today's line of Ty
Classics™ offers cats, dogs, teddy bears,
rabbits, and other plush animals, generally in much larger
sizes than the Beanie Babies®. Ty
Attic Treasures™
are teddy bears and other stuffed animals styled with an old-fashioned
look, as if they were something that might be found in grandmother's
attic (hence, the name). The Attic Treasures™ were discontinued
in 2003.
For very young children, Ty offers the Baby
Ty™ line, consisting of large, very soft stuffed
animals intended to be played with by very young children.
The Baby Ty™ line, in effect, replaced Ty's earlier
Pillow Pal™
line.
In recent
years, Ty has introduced a line of children called Beanie
Kids™, a line of especially jazzy children
called Beanie Boppers™,
and Beanie Gear™,
consisting of outfits for the Kids and Boppers. The newest
additions to the Ty product line are the whimsical Punkies™
and the Pluffies™,
similar to the earlier Pillow Pals™ and Baby Ty™
lines.
Finally, Ty's Beanie Babies Official Club (BBOC) marketed
a line of Beanie Baby Trading
Cards.
Toni
began with Beanie Babies®back in late 1997. Nearly every
weekend until she opened her store in April 1999, she sold
Beanie Babies® at shows in Northern California and Nevada,
and she gained a reputation for having one of the widest collections
of beanies and other Ty® products. Toni has sold, at one
time or another, practically every Beanie Baby®. She also
became an expert at spotting counterfeit beanies, so her customers
could always buy with the assurance that they were receiving
an authentic Ty® product.
Today, Toni's Collectibles
is an authorized Ty® retailer offering an extensive selection
of Ty® products from across the various product lines.
|
