Beanie Baby Find questions

[pulltabfelix]

A few days ago I was at an estate sale. I found a nice antique meat grinder for $8.00 complete in box with directions. Looked up on eBay selling for $40.00. I was pleased. To be sure all was there in the box, I sat down at the guys home office desk to check the box contents. I noticed a Beanie Baby in a plastic display case on his desk. I thought that is odd why does a guy have a Beanie Baby. Then the light bulb went off and I concluded he must have thought it was valuable. So I gambled $3.00 and bought it.

Got home and found out it is indeed a rare Beanie Baby that match exactly all the things that indicated it was the rare version. Now comes the questions.

One of these sold recently for $680 and one for $2,060. Both had all the rare attributes listed. But then there was some that seem to have had the same rare attributes but went for a couple of dollars.

What accounts for the differences in the winning prices? did the owner of the one that sold for a few dollars just mess up on listing the item without a reserve?

How common is it to find a rare beanie baby at a garage sale, estate sale or thrift store?

thanks for any help you can provide.

 

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[13dolphins1]

A few days ago I was at an estate sale. I found a nice antique meat grinder for $8.00 complete in box with directions. Looked up on eBay selling for $40.00. I was pleased. To be sure all was there in the box, I sat down at the guys home office desk to check the box contents. I noticed a Beanie Baby in a plastic display case on his desk. I thought that is odd why does a guy have a Beanie Baby. Then the light bulb went off and I concluded he must have thought it was valuable. So I gambled $3.00 and bought it.

Got home and found out it is indeed a rare Beanie Baby that match exactly all the things that indicated it was the rare version. Now comes the questions.

One of these sold recently for $680 and one for $2,060. Both had all the rare attributes listed. But then there was some that seem to have had the same rare attributes but went for a couple of dollars.

What accounts for the differences in the winning prices? did the owner of the one that sold for a few dollars just mess up on listing the item without a reserve?

How common is it to find a rare beanie baby at a garage sale, estate sale or thrift store?

thanks for any help you can provide.

I dont know much about beanie babies but a picture of it may help someone who does know explain what you have. I would also like to see it...lol.

 

[trdhrdr007]

I just did an eBay completed listings search. It showed 147 completed & 13 sold in the last 90 days. One sold was for $680. Out of the completed listings there was a lot of the "rare" with errors listings for a lot less money that didn't sell. That's generally an indication that the high dollar sale is bogus for some reason. If you think about it there isn't any logical reason for one to sell at that price when there are several available for a fraction of the price.

 

[Johnnybravo300]

They are all over for 4-5 bucks apiece, my mom still has a room full of them and is still convinced they will someday be worth a fortune hehe.
I tell her that when they are left to me I'm going to sew them up inside a bed sheet and have a giant beanie baby bag for my dogs to lay on.

I read that the lady that wrote the beanie baby collector book made millions and she said she just had to make stuff up Haha. She said people will collect anything if you tell them it's a collectable, and they want all the books too. She never collected them herself.

 

[artslinger]

I agree, they will come back! :-) Not really. I've seen them in boxes on the curbs while garage sale hunting! I did buy one several months ago, and he sits on my desk. it's the Ty USA one. His name fuzzy. Lol.

See below article on these beanies crazy "prices'.

21 Beanie Babies That Are Now Worth An Absolute Fortune

 

[OtakuDude]

I honestly think there is a great deal of money laundering going on via. Ebay. I've lost count of the number of times I've been going through the 'sold listings' of some particular item and seen one sell for stupid high money while identical items sell for pennies in comparison.

 

[pulltabfelix]

Yeah, I am curious about the high sold values and low sold values. I have experience in buying morgan dollars. Most sales that have close are what you expect. Ie, the 1921 morgans are so common and all about in the same condition, the sold price is very consistent. Morgan key dates all sell for higher amounts as expected.

but this particular beanie baby sold items has me puzzled. The guy's answer about money laundering, may be true. So does that means the buy and seller knows each other? seems like they would have to make the deal work.

As far as the beanie baby book author making stuff up, I can believe that. I have been associated with the book business since 1996. Maybe the guy in the estate sale bought her book and believed her non-sense about this particular beanie baby being rare.

but, my investment is $3.00 and I will put it out on ebay for a fixed buy now price of say $2,000 for a while and see if someone read the same book.

I have seen some items that are valuable on ebay go for a low price. I have seen people auction off a morgan silver dollar and get only one bid for less than $2.00 which is much less than the $11.00 melt value. I just figure it is a new ebay seller that does not know how things really work on ebay.

There are web sites that will show you items that the selling is ending in minutes rather than days and you can pick up some good deals on auctions in the last few seconds. But not often. Often they are junk coins with high shipping costs.

I will let you guy know what my results are if any on trying to sell this so called rare beanie baby on ebay.

 

[Owassokie]

I honestly think there is a great deal of money laundering going on via. Ebay. I've lost count of the number of times I've been going through the 'sold listings' of some particular item and seen one sell for stupid high money while identical items sell for pennies in comparison.

There's definitely something that goes on. I know some people have found ways to make money that include purchases of gift cards or other items on ebay, combining it with cash back from credit cards and rinse/repeat. But I don't think this explains the over paid prices on other items. I just don't understand exactly what or why people would launder through Ebay with the high cost. If you are laundering money, wouldn't you sell stuff somewhere else where the commissions aren't eating up 10 to 15% of the money. Criminals trying to launder massive amounts of money are going to find something more efficient than that.

I think most of it is actually credit card fraud. I think people are getting as much credit extended as they can and then laundering money to themselves before they file bankruptcy.

 

[pulltabfelix]

OtakuDude has the correct answer. It is money laundering on ebay here is how it works. The biggest clue is high value especially on Beanie Babies. the seller most often is brand new with zero feedback and just set up their account within days.

They cannot run their money thru banks because it will get reported. Drug dealers laundry their dirty money is to set up fake listings on eBay. It looks like a real transaction, but the price is usually astronomically inflated for the type of item, and the sales price does not make sense. Here is how it works:

Let's say Jim has a customer who wants to buy something illegal, such as drugs, stolen property, or weapons. Rather than create a transaction with cash, Jim tells his customer he will set up a listing on eBay for a particular item at a very inflated price. He will then send a link to the item to the client. This is called a "prearranged sale."

No one will actually buy the grossly overpriced item, and Jim's client will purchase it, sending the money through Paypal. Also, eBay gets its fees and Paypal gets its fee of 3 percent. Jim ships a box of rocks or some insignificant item to the client's address and no one is the wiser.

Once the transaction has taken place on eBay, and the money is in Jim's account, he meets up with his client to deliver the actual goods which again may be drugs, weapons, or some sort of contraband. The transaction takes place, the money has changed hands, the illegal goods are delivered, and all of this is done under the radar.

Now there are good legal transactions for rare Beanie Babies, but the sellers have a legit history on ebay with positive feedback and lots of items for sale.

So the key to determining a rare beanie baby is to do your research of sold listings, check the rare item attributes and verify the seller history. Yes it adds additional research, but it is necessary. Thanks OtakuDude for the tip in the right direction to my question. Why I love TN.

 

[trdhrdr007]

OtakuDude has the correct answer. It is money laundering on ebay here is how it works. The biggest clue is high value especially on Beanie Babies. the seller most often is brand new with zero feedback and just set up their account within days.

They cannot run their money thru banks because it will get reported. Drug dealers laundry their dirty money is to set up fake listings on eBay. It looks like a real transaction, but the price is usually astronomically inflated for the type of item, and the sales price does not make sense. Here is how it works:

Let's say Jim has a customer who wants to buy something illegal, such as drugs, stolen property, or weapons. Rather than create a transaction with cash, Jim tells his customer he will set up a listing on eBay for a particular item at a very inflated price. He will then send a link to the item to the client. This is called a "prearranged sale."

No one will actually buy the grossly overpriced item, and Jim's client will purchase it, sending the money through Paypal. Also, eBay gets its fees and Paypal gets its fee of 3 percent. Jim ships a box of rocks or some insignificant item to the client's address and no one is the wiser.

Once the transaction has taken place on eBay, and the money is in Jim's account, he meets up with his client to deliver the actual goods which again may be drugs, weapons, or some sort of contraband. The transaction takes place, the money has changed hands, the illegal goods are delivered, and all of this is done under the radar.

Now there are good legal transactions for rare Beanie Babies, but the sellers have a legit history on ebay with positive feedback and lots of items for sale.

So the key to determining a rare beanie baby is to do your research of sold listings, check the rare item attributes and verify the seller history. Yes it adds additional research, but it is necessary. Thanks OtakuDude for the tip in the right direction to my question. Why I love TN.

That's a good theory but it won't fly. Without going into a lot of detail I'll just say I was in the "sales" business many years ago. I associated with people on many levels of the business. People on the lower end of the types of business mentioned take in cash & spend every last cent. People on higher levels that have more cash than they can spend aren't looking to launder a couple grand here and there. Not to mention that people in that line of business are extremely paranoid.....which means there is no way they are going to create a traceable transaction between themselves & a buyer.

 

[lookindown]

I see items all the time worth no more than 10 bucks with sold for prices between 10 and 20 thousand dollars.

 

[axelrich]

These were highly collectibles in the past, as people invested heavily on them to make fortune in the future. Still, I haven't found any beany bears that is sold for more than 20 bucks irrespective of the condition or the attached tag.