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Beanie Babies and other collectibles

© Wayne Dawe

This week I'm going to talk about collecting focusing mainly on a disturbing trend I've noticed in the past few years. When I was a kid I collected stamps and coins for fun. It seem that in the past few years kids seem to be starting collections with dollar signs in their eyes. They seem to buy comic books, baseball cards and even the latest collecting fad, Beanie Babies, with an eye to how much they will be worth some day. They don't play with them or even take them out of the bag for fear that their value might be compromised.

I find this trend a bit disturbing and I think a lot of kids are missing the fun of collecting because they focus too much on the whether this or that is a good buy. So read those comics and play with those Beanies! It doesn't matter whether it be a real beanie or just a good facsimile if you're only going to pay five bucks for it. Besides, the dog will probably use it as a chew toy when you're bored with it anyway. I have a really radical suggestion. Why not head down to the crafts store, buy some supplies and make your own stuffed bean bag toy? The Kids page at sewing.org has a instruction on how to make your own Mr. Ginger bean bag man and the Husqvarna sewing machine people have directions on making your own Bean Bag snake.

If you must have the real thing you can find pictures of all of the current crop at The Official Beanie Babies List on the Ty web site. I found an interesting article on the whole phenomena on the Seattle Times web site. What do you think of the whole Beanie baby situation? How many do you have? Who's your favorite? Just add your comments to the discussion at the end of the page.

If you're sick of Beanie's I have some other collecting sites for you. How about a site devoted to PEZ? At least with PEZ you get to eat the candy.

If dolls are your thing then A Doll's House is the place for you. This site features dolls from 1950 or earlier. If doll's aren't your cup of tea another extremely cool site is hotwheels.com. Very active, very cool but you better have Shockwave and Java. I was also impressed by Mattel's privacy statement and their focus on Internet safety. Mattel encourages children not to use their real names when registering.

Well, I hope I haven't bored you too much. Be sure to come back next week