Beanie Kids Rule

There are two really special types of Beanie Kids to collect, which in time will be worth more from a collection point of view.

PREMIER exclusive beanie kids are immediately retired, making them more valuable and harder to come by.

MUTATIONS are special varieties of beanie kids which have something different. There are only a very small number of mutations in existence.

date of birth 7 June 2005
star sign Gemini
mutation bear

The latest student at the dance school is Pirouette, and boy can
this girl spin. Whenever I try to spin more then 5 times I fall over,
but not Pirouette, she can spin 100 times or more and
still stay in the same spot...Amazing! If it were me,
I would be turning purple!

date of birth 7 October 2005
star sign Libra
retired July 2006

Ringo is special because he is a premier exclusive beanie kid.
Ringo's favourite food is nice fresh apples! Luckily,
Farmer Joe has more than enough apple trees in his orchard
to keep the whole of Beanie Island happy as well as a super
hungry possum like Ringo. To say thank you for all the apples he eats,
Ringo helps Farmer Joe pick his fruit for market.

date of birth 17 march 2005
star sign Pisces
retired august 2005

she is cool and has a sister called Jennifer
This girl loves to entertain, not only is she an accomplished singer, but she is quite a talented actress as well. She is great friends with Brittany and Fame the Movie Star Bear.

date of birth 2 August 2004
star sign Leo
retired July 2006

The Beanie Master has been hearing reports that some evil
doers were heading towards Beanie Island, so he has called upon his
good friend Super beanie to come to Beanie Island and
keep an eye on things.

date of birth 14 February 2005
star sign Aquarius
current bear

Here is one of the messiest beanies that ever lived,
Scruffy just doesn't see the need for all this washing and haircuts etc,
he's just happy doing what he likes best, which mainly consists of eating.
He has become close friends with Pierre of course.

Beanie kids turned ten in September 2007 so there was a lot of exciting things planned for this special occasion one of them was that they released a rare cuddly kid beanie master - he will be retailing for about $50.00 but sadly he is going to be very rare for the retail stores that has beanie kids where allocated only 4 of these special kids.

Beanie Kids were launched in Australia in September 1997. The product was launched as a soft toy initially, but it didn't take long for collectors to develop a keen eye for the product and see the potential for Beanie Kids as a collectible in the secondary market within Australia.

Since then, popularity of these cute collectables has grown resulting in millions of units sold around Australia.

Beanie Kids are a small 8-inch, bean filled collectable plush toy that is currently available in the gift and specialty market at a recommended retail of $9.95. The range consists of a large and ever growing variety of bears and animals.

The Beanie Kid program works in such a way that all beanies are launched to the market with their own birth dates, star signs and special names. These Beanies are current Beanies, that is, they are continually produced and available to the general market. However, after a period of time (unknown by buyers and collectors alike) they will be retired. Retirement of a Beanie Kid signifies a date from which they will no longer be manufactured and therefore whatever quantity is in existence at that point is finite. When a Beanie Kid retires, the value of the Beanie Kid increases as they become harder to find. Even the slowest selling Beanie Kid will move out as soon as it retires. Out of stock situations create demand and higher prices on the secondary market, thus increases the value.

One of the main factors for determining the value of a Beanie Kid in the secondary market is the condition of the swing tag. All serious collectors protect their swing tags with their lives. Some of the independent wholesalers on the secondary market have even invested in tag protectors, as there has been great demand for these from the secondary market. The swing tag is the descriptive tag that is attached to the Beanie Kids ear. They also have a tush tag that is sewn in by the manufacturers and collectors use both of the tags to decide which generation a Beanie Kid belongs to.

There have been many generations of swingtags produced for Beanie kids. Obviously the earlier the generation swingtags are, the more money the Beanie Kids will be worth on the secondary market.

The Beanie Kid, itself, must remain in mint condition to maintain its value.

Many of the original Beanie Kids are fetching very attractive secondary market values to date and these figures are on the rise. Goldie the Yellow Bear and Jade the green Bear are attracting bidding prices upwards starting from AUD $400. These Retired Beanie Kids were originally sold for their original recommended retail price and have now matured on the secondary market.

The designs of Beanie Kids are frequently retired and new ones introduced, constantly feeding the collector's appetite. Skansen have an experienced and dedicated product development team, constantly working on keeping this product range exciting and sought after.

Beanie Kids went on-line in March 1998 - www.beaniekids.com

To date the site has received tens of thousands of hits, representing the wealth of interest that exists in the market for these "delectable collectibles".

There are many retail sites that have been developed and dedicated purely to Beanie Kids. Some of these include;

Catalogue O' Fun - www.funbeanie.com/
Beanie World - www.beanieworld.org/
Cardeaux - www.cardeaux.com.au/
Full-o-Beanies - www.full-o-beanies.biz/

To find retired Beanie Kids visit http://www.ebay.com.au/

As well as collector's sites such as:

The Bean Scene - www.members.optushome.com.au/beanscene

These are just a few of the well known beanie sites where collectors gather to chat about beanie releases, beanie gossip and general beanie kid information, even beanie mutations! Many visitors to these sites use their peers as sources to discover where specific, hard to find beanies, are located and also to trade and sell parts of their collections.

Beanie Kids are available at Granny May's, What's New and Kenny's Cardiology stores. They are also available at other independent chains that are listed on the Skansen Beanie Kid web site. Beanie Kids are not distributed to mass market retail chains, such as, Target, K-mart etc. This distribution concept is to avoid the discounting strategies that these chains employ.

The popularity of Beanie Kids, both as a collectable and as a gift, has experienced rapid growth since its launch in September 1997. Sales over the past years have only seen this growth rate accelerate into what we are sure are to be the foundation of many successful years for this collectable program.
To-date there have been over 400 different designs released into the Australian Marketplace.

Beanie Kids have now begun to export in the U.K. under the name of Bean Bag Bears and have also begun distribution into Norway under the same name.

date of birth 4 January 2006
star sign Capricorn
current Bear

Although Precious is a very lucky girl who is able to
get just about everything she wants because
her daddy is very rich.
Even though some people get the wrong impression
of her, he really is a sweetie and does
care about others. Precious does love to party
and her hobby is movie making but she also does lots
of work for charity to help others
who are not as fortunate as she is.

26-Jan-2007
Aquarius

Oohlaroo is an Aussie who has been living in rain forests of the top end all his life before heading to Beanie Island. He has an affinity with the Aboriginal people and has absorbed their culture into his everyday living and enjoys teaching the other Beanie Kids about this way of life.

Angela the School Formal Bear

date of birth 6 July 2005
star sign cancer
retired may 2006

She not only helped to organise the School Formal, but was
crowned queen by all those who attended. Most agreed that it was
one of the best School Formals ever held!
The school has even asked Angela to come back each
year to assist with future formals.

date of birth 2 July 2006
star sign cancer
retired February 2007

Roar lives on Uranus, which is covered in ice and has an average
temperature of -200 C. He uses a combination of his horns,
strong head and voice to smash his way through the ice.
In fact, Roar got his name because his voice is pitched at just
the right level to crack the ice whenever he roars!
Roar is 2 of 4 in the second series.

date of birth 1 January
star sign Gemini
retired may 2007

Shadow found his way onto Beanie Island after stowing away on
Jolly Rogers' ship. During the day he's just like all the other
Beanie Kids enjoying Island life but at night when he puts on
his mask and cape, Shadow creeps around Beanie Island preparing
secret special surprises for all his Beanie friends.

1-Aug-2007
Leo

There has been a real spate of feline visitors to the island, but who can blame them? It is sunny most of the time, and Posh loves nothing better than a nap in the sunshine. The other thing Posh loves about the island is that it's incredibly clean and when you're a cat cleanliness is very important.

23-Nov-2007
Sagittarius

Being best friend with Ashes, Howzat, is always trying to get a game started with the island inhabitants. He has an uncanny ability to recall all the stats of Australia's greatest players. No-one has been able to stump him yet either on or off the field.