It’s time to dust off those boxes of beanie babies you’ve had stored in your attic the last 15 years: One of those little critters could sell for over $100,000. Children of the ’90s, all your trips to KB Toys might not have been in vain!
Recently, a young couple in the U.K. found out that a beanie baby they purchased at a car boot sale for just £10 ($15 USD) could be worth a whopping £62,500 ($93,400 USD) on eBay. Why so valuable? The toy in question is one of only 100 “first edition” purple bears made to honor Princess Diana after she died in 1997 — a true rarity:
They confirmed that it was the extremely rare bear — handmade in Indonesia in 2007 with special pellets and wording on the tag that refers to the Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.
There was a poem as well, about Princess Diana: “Like an angel she came from heaven above; she shared her compassion, her pain, her love; she only stayed with us long enough to teach the world to share, to give, to reach.”
As The Independent notes, though, other similar bears have been known to sell for less. Still, that hasn’t stopped enterprising beanie baby collectors from jacking up prices. At the time of publishing this post, there were some astronomically high listings to be found on eBay.