posted on July 7, 2001 02:20:37 PM
I have one beanie baby to sell so I went and looked at the closed auctions. Seven pages. Maybe 10 percent closed if that with an average sell price of $2.00.
At .30 to list, and that high a volume offered why would anyone do that?????
posted on July 7, 2001 02:31:31 PM
What's the average amount stated for shipping (& handling)?
They might be making a little bit off of the shipping, but I agree... what's the point? Hardly seems worth the effort to wade through eBays sell your item form MAZE.
Another reason for the pages of listings on low dollar items is that perhaps those sellers didn't search for similar items before listing... they might be thinking the Beanie Craze is still underway and have unrealistically high expectations for their listings.
AND there might be a few folks listing those items to sell them at $2.00 before eBays glutted marketplace causes the average ending value to slip below a dollar!... who knows, NEXT YEAR this time, those Beanie Baby listers might be willing to pay to list and then pay the "WATCHERS" for taking the little buggars off their hands! I hear closet space is at a premium among long time eBayers. *giggle*
posted on July 7, 2001 10:57:52 PM
if you pack them up carefully, store for 20 to 25 years, you will sell them at crazy cool prices to the current youngsters who mess up/lose/trade their beanies and grow nostalgic about them. Happened with My Little Pony!
However you can't know WHICH will be super cool and which ones will be rare NOW and thusly over-saved! Also those sales will be a victim of inflation, so even if you get $30 apiece, that may be what a Whopper (c) costs then!
posted on July 12, 2001 07:33:49 PM
It's not worth it. If many sellers are selling the very same item, you have less chances of selling that item, especially if the other sellers are willing to sell theirs cheaper than yours. It's a wise idea to search on eBay for the same kind of item you want to sell before you list it. If you find out that the item is too common you might decide not to waste your time and money. You'll have less chances of losing your money to greedy eBay. If you bought something for $1 and only sell it for $2. You end up only getting about $0.60 cents for the time you spent with your
auction.
I agree with "immykidsmom". I was thinking about selling some of my 5 years old still in package action figures on eBay. I decided not to because I figured out that too many people were selling the same kind I wanted to sell. Most of the ending auction prices I looked at were much lower than what they cost when I bought them brand new 5 years ago at toy store sales.
I decided to save my action figures and let them sit in storage.
posted on July 13, 2001 06:22:12 AM
immykidsmom, there's a problem with your theory of holding Beanies until today's kids buy them back. The My Little Pony toys you mentioned were actually purchased for play - packaging was opened up and discarded, pieces lost, condition downgraded with use. The same is true of most collectible toys - Star Wars, He-Man, Barbie, whatever.
However, the Beanie market in general is very different. Most Beanies were purchased by collectors who sealed them in airtight packaging that would survive an assault by a Sherman tank - and they put the little Beanie tag inside a plastic sleeve just in case. The Beanie craze was fueled by collectors and even worse - speculators who treated them like stocks to day trade. I'm afraid that this means 20-25 years from now, when people are buying items from this period out of nostalgia, there will be a readily available supply of Beanies in mint condition still floating around out there, thus depressing prices.
The 1990s, and especially the post-ebay late 1990s saw a huge shift in the toy collecting mentality - and the Beanie craze is the most blatant example. Today toys are bought straight off the shelf and stashed away by collector/investors. Specialty shops and websites sell action figures to them by the cases. When collectors go to "cash out" the toys, they're going to have a rude awakening as everybody else is trying to do the same thing. I think the toys of the 1990s will go up in value, but not at the astronomical rate that toys of earlier periods did, due to the large supply preserved in unopened packages.
I think if you want to see what's going to be valuable in 20 years, check out what kids are actually playing with now - for the most part these are not the same toys that collectors are buying. These are the toys that will be hard to find in decent, complete condition down the line.
posted on July 13, 2001 06:32:20 AM
based on my house, then [with resident 2 kids, 6 and 3], winners might include Brio and Thomas wooden trains and components, computer games, Pikachu or Pooh items, Teletubbies anything...
That's why baseball cards are such an iffy thing now. I used to get them when they still had gum. You bought them one pack at a time and actually BUILT a collection. Now people pick and choose cards, buy whole sets, preserve them for all time, etc.
Some slip through -- the no name player who no one thought would make it big and then whammo, his cards are a bloody fortunte.
Same with Beanies -- anything sold TO BE COLLECTIBLE is less likely to be valuable down the road. In my opinion.
It's the oddball stuff that kids destroyed -- and some made it through -- that build up value.
I had the game Dark Tower as a kid -- sells for $200+ these days. Vertibird I had -- sells for over $150. But I got them to PLAY WITH THEM, not store them forever.
And this is the stuff to look for at the yard sales.
posted on July 13, 2001 10:09:04 AM
Most sellers on ebay aren't very sophisticated. They have something to sell, they list it. Not all of these are just clearing out their closets either, many experienced sellers do this. The extra minute to check the recent closing prices is worth the effort in saved time it takes to list what likely would not have sold, plus listing fee.
I admit I love the beanie babies. The older ones are more rare and should be very valuable in the future. At that time it was a kids toy and the tags were removed. They are also more ugly. The newer animals are much better quality and often have a good representation of a real animal. I buy the most real life looking beanies, not for investment. Even many recent beanies are retired within one month, they offer good investment potential.
