Curly is one of the most hotly debated Beanie Babies due to all of the internet “Rarest Beanie Babies Lists” going around. How it made that list in the first place is puzzling.
Curly is one of the most common Beanies ever made. It was manufactured during the height of the craze when Ty was making millions of them.
Many believe that Curly has “error tags”. While there are some errors on some tags they were made in the millions and are not considered rare by collectors. It’s pure internet hoax.
FACTS:
- All Ty Curly Beanie Babies have a brown nose. They NEVER came with a black nose.
- The year on the tush tag vs inside the swing tag may be different – this is normal. Curly’s tush tag has 1993 date and it’s swing tag has a 1996 birthdate. The tush tag gives the year Ty “copyrighted” the Beanie name and will always stay the same on all Beanies with that name. The swing tag date is a made-up birthdate, could be of a secretary, friend, event, etc.
HANG TAG FACTS:
- There are punctuation & spacing issues. These were printed in the millions and do NOT add any value.
- Oakbrook written as one word, not 2 – that is how Ty intended it to be on both swing and tush tag. It’s NOT an error.
- Hang tag has a space before “colon” and after the words DATE OF BIRTH instead of a semicolon.
- The word “you” on the second line of poem is not Capitalized, and there’s an “extra space” between “To” and “this” in the poem.
- 5th gen hang tags have a comma after Oakbrook (Oakbrook, IL.).
- IL. (with a period only) is CORRECT, instead of IL., (period comma) – Ty intentionally did this.
- 5th gen hang tag has the birthdate spelled out April 12, 1996.
- 5th gen hang tags have the Ty address listed as Fareham, Hants P015 5TX U.K.
- 4th gen hang tags come WITH and WITHOUT a comma after Oakbrook (Oakbrook, IL. and Oakbrook IL.).
- 4th gen hang tag has a numerical birthdate 4-12-96.
- Some 4th gen hang tags have a German version copyright inside the tag “@ Ty Deutschland 90008 Nurnberg” vs the Canadian version copyright “@ Ty Canada Aurora, Ontario”.
- Some 4th gen hang tags have the Ty address listed as Fareham, Hants.
- 4th gen hang tag – Ty intentionally left off the U.K. after P015 5TX.
- The tag “@ Ty Deutschland 90008 Nurnberg” has the word “You” on the second line of poem spelled correctly and the spacing between “To” and “this” in the poem is correct.
- The word “ORIGINAL” misspelled on the 5th gen hang tag as “ORIGIINAL” (has two II’s) is a spelling error, but was printed like that on such a large quantity of Beanies that it DOES NOT increase the value.
- On the back of the tag the word “Surface Wash” is misspelled as “Suface Wash”.
- Sticker on the back of hang tag stating “Surface Wash”, covers the spelling error “Suface Wash”.
TUSH TAG FACTS:
- There are punctuation & spacing issues on the tush tags that were mass produced and DON’T affect the value. That is how Ty intended it to be on both swing and tush tag. These are NOT errors.
- TY INC., (ALL CAPS & with the period and comma) is CORRECT – the TY INC. (without the comma) is NOT correct.
- OAKBROOK written as one word, not 2 – and there is no comma after OAKBROOK (OAKBROOK IL,).
- IL, (with the comma) is CORRECT – the IL. (with the period) is NOT correct
- NO PA. 1965(KR) on the tush tag – KR on the tush tag does not mean it was made in Korea. The “KR” is part of the patent info. 1965(KR) DOES NOT mean it was for the Korean market.
- P.V.C PELLETS vs P.E. PELLETS — these were made with both types of pellets — mass produced, and do NOT add value.
- Upper/Lower case Ty Inc. (with the period only) is CORRECT.
- OAKBROOK written as one word, not 2 – and there is a comma after OAKBROOK (OAKBROOK, IL.).
- IL. (with a period only) is CORRECT.
- Stamp inside the tush tag (or NO stamp) – the stamp is referred to as a “factory” stamp, which indicates which factory these beanies were produced at, and is really not important. The exception would be the different stamp numbers inside the Peace Beanie babies tush tags.
- Tush tag breakdown of trademark™ and registered® symbols:
— The Beanie Babies Collection™ – TM means this phrase is trademarked
— The Ty RED Heart® logo – R means the logo is registered
— Beanie Babies® – R means the words are registered
— The Beanie Babies Collection® – R means this phrase is registered
— Curly™ – TM means the name is trademarked - Curly came with many different tush tags — millions were made, again, not an error.
— 3rd gen tush tag, comes with 4th gen hang tag.
— 4th gen tush tag, comes with 4th gen hang tag.
— 4th gen tush tag with plastic sticker, comes with 4th gen hang tag.
— 5th gen tush tag, comes with 4th gen hang tag.
— 6th gen tush tag, comes with 5th gen hang tag.
MORE FACTS:
You’ve seen high sales? So have we, but they’re fake. Sometimes it’s a seller trying to keep the rumors going. They set up a listing and have a friend buy it. Sometimes it’s a vigilante buyer trying to hurt a seller. Money laundering also happens but not as often as a few years ago.
Where is all of this misinformation coming from? In 2014 (some say 2013) a list of rare beanies appeared on a click bait “news” site. The information spread like wildfire amongst resellers who do not know the hobby. Every few months a new list comes out from some website trying to get easy click bait traffic. They change a few details, change out a few Beanies and get it 99% wrong.
Why do we see alleged high dollar “sales” on eBay? First, we have to separate what looks sold from what sellers are asking. Sellers can ask whatever they want. The high dollar asking prices are from people who believe what they read on the internet. You know, because everything you read on it is true. The alleged “sold” prices are a different matter. They usually fall into 5 different categories.
- Seller sets up a “fake” sale and has someone “buy” it to keep the rumors going. Remember, payment does not have to be made for it to show sold.
- Vigilante bidders trying to teach the seller a lesson. This can only happen if the seller has “make an offer” or doesn’t have instant payment required. The buyer never pays. Our understanding of this is two-fold. One, to get the the item off the market. Two, hoping that the seller has to pay final value fees before filing non paying bidder.
- Money laundering – yes, it happens. Don’t understand it? Watch Breaking Bad.
- Black market items – this is a new one that has been passed around from collectors of other items. We have no idea how that works or if it’s been proven.
- Buyer scams
Let’s take a good look at each auction. The first 3 culprits:The first one shows $8999 with a best offer. Let’s look inside:
0 feedback seller and it’s been relisted. What does this tell us? It wasn’t paid for. More than likely this was a fake sale. The listing history shows it was set up as a private listing so we can’t check the buyer. No feedback has been exchanged. No one is going to spend this type of cash from a newbie seller when it’s available for much, much less from many well established sellers.
Next.No feedback exchanged, low feedback seller and a 1 feedback buyer. It just doesn’t happen.
Next.
At first glance this one looks better than most. Decent feedback seller. Then you notice it’s been relisted. Then you use the tools to dig deeper and see it’s a 1 feedback buyer. No feedback exchanged. No sale.
Next 4:
This one should be obvious. 0 feedback seller, relisted, 1 feedback buyer. Fake sale.
Again, 0 feedback seller, relisted, 1 feedback buyer, no feedback exchanged. Seeing the pattern yet? 0 feedback seller, relisted, no feedback exchanged, 1 rating buyer.
0 feedback buyer & seller. No feedback exchanged. No sale.
I will leave this here because we could show you the same thing over and over and over.
The rumors regarding Curly, Valentino, Peace, Jake, Millennium, Glory, Boxed McDonald’s Teenie Beanies, error tags, etc. is a big internet hoax. These rumors started in 2014 with one article. It spread like wildfire. There ARE rare beanies. It’s just that these aren’t the rare ones. If everyone is asking about the same errors and the same Beanies then just how rare could they possibly be?
So what should Curly sell for? Recent TRUE sales show this :
As you can clearly see, these prices are a far cry from the thousands of dollars claimed by these articles.
We like to say this. If these lists were accurate every expert in the hobby would be rich and we wouldn’t be answering questions.
Check out Curly’s Beanie Fact page.
For your convenience 3 Beanie experts research and update the Beanie Babies Price Guide. They also run a very large Beanie Babies Collectors Facebook Group to buy/sell/ask questions that aren’t covered in our many articles.