Remembering Beanie Babies & the Nineties
What's new? Not much. The recession continues. We are continuing too. We're plugging on with work regardless. It is a worry but it could be worse. At least being self employed we aren't at risk of losing our jobs. We both have years of experience of doing what we do. So it is one foot in front of the other and hope for the best.
I feel for those who find themselves out of work with a mortgage and other bills and a house that might be difficult to impossible to sell and kids that were hoping to go to college or to do something somewhere that costs money. In the long run perhaps this will toughen everyone up in a good way. We may have all gotten to the point where we took the value of money for granted.
Back in the late nineties when Beanie Babies were the thing to pursue and collect, people were paying hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for these little decorative stuffed pouches of cloth. It was amazing and amusing to watch. People were following UPS trucks in order to discover the stores where the most recent deliveries of Beanie Babies had been made so that they could be first to purchase them and then often resell them at considerable markups on eBay and elsewhere. We know someone who bought one for $5,000 and then resold it at a small markup! Now, looking back at that reckless abandonment of concern for the longterm value of money, I wonder how those same folk who ended up with a $5,000+ Beanie Baby and the others that were well over the MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) feel about their B.B.s now? Do they feel regret? Did they lose their passion for them? Are they more careful now? Do they block it all out of their minds and practice forgetfulness? How painful a memory that must be!
Sometimes at local auctions box lots of Beanie Babies come up for sale. They don't bring much. I can't tell you how much because I haven't hung around long enough at the auctions to find out. I don't care. Although I never did even back in that time frame. But it was an interesting phenomenon at the time. Looking back at it from the midst of a recession makes me think of the contrast between then and now. I suppose that the Beanie Baby phenomenon is not the end of that kind of recklessness. There likely will always be another Beanie Baby type of successful marketing campaign that elicits the short term passion of some vulnerable group. Today for example there might be some who would do just about anything for certain Michael Jackson things in the aftermath of his recent death. It will all make sense to them at this moment in time and they won't consider consequences.
I do have a little block of Beanie Babies somewhere. Some parrots. I have live parrots as pets and I wanted some Beanie Baby parrots. I don't know where my Beanie Baby parrots are. I recall that I bought twelve. I don't remember what I paid but it wasn't painful. So I have no regrets about my own Beanie Babies. I didn't buy them with investment in mind which is what some people had in mind back in the nineties. However, I did buy some stock back then and some of that stock went the same way as the Beanie Babies did. Down! So that taught me a lesson. I imagine that the investor/Beanie Baby buyers learned quite a lesson too! One that has to do with the value of money and how to treat it with some respect!
May all of our lessons be ones that we can recover from! There are worse things that can happen than to lose money.
Ginny
I feel for those who find themselves out of work with a mortgage and other bills and a house that might be difficult to impossible to sell and kids that were hoping to go to college or to do something somewhere that costs money. In the long run perhaps this will toughen everyone up in a good way. We may have all gotten to the point where we took the value of money for granted.
Back in the late nineties when Beanie Babies were the thing to pursue and collect, people were paying hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for these little decorative stuffed pouches of cloth. It was amazing and amusing to watch. People were following UPS trucks in order to discover the stores where the most recent deliveries of Beanie Babies had been made so that they could be first to purchase them and then often resell them at considerable markups on eBay and elsewhere. We know someone who bought one for $5,000 and then resold it at a small markup! Now, looking back at that reckless abandonment of concern for the longterm value of money, I wonder how those same folk who ended up with a $5,000+ Beanie Baby and the others that were well over the MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price) feel about their B.B.s now? Do they feel regret? Did they lose their passion for them? Are they more careful now? Do they block it all out of their minds and practice forgetfulness? How painful a memory that must be!
Sometimes at local auctions box lots of Beanie Babies come up for sale. They don't bring much. I can't tell you how much because I haven't hung around long enough at the auctions to find out. I don't care. Although I never did even back in that time frame. But it was an interesting phenomenon at the time. Looking back at it from the midst of a recession makes me think of the contrast between then and now. I suppose that the Beanie Baby phenomenon is not the end of that kind of recklessness. There likely will always be another Beanie Baby type of successful marketing campaign that elicits the short term passion of some vulnerable group. Today for example there might be some who would do just about anything for certain Michael Jackson things in the aftermath of his recent death. It will all make sense to them at this moment in time and they won't consider consequences.
I do have a little block of Beanie Babies somewhere. Some parrots. I have live parrots as pets and I wanted some Beanie Baby parrots. I don't know where my Beanie Baby parrots are. I recall that I bought twelve. I don't remember what I paid but it wasn't painful. So I have no regrets about my own Beanie Babies. I didn't buy them with investment in mind which is what some people had in mind back in the nineties. However, I did buy some stock back then and some of that stock went the same way as the Beanie Babies did. Down! So that taught me a lesson. I imagine that the investor/Beanie Baby buyers learned quite a lesson too! One that has to do with the value of money and how to treat it with some respect!
May all of our lessons be ones that we can recover from! There are worse things that can happen than to lose money.
Ginny
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