Magazine

A dad staring at a beanie baby website on his laptop while holding an 11-month-old.

My Beanie Baby Website Search: A Dad's Guide to Winter Hats & Toys

I'm sitting in the artificial blue glow of my MacBook at 3:14 AM, desperately clicking through a retro-looking beanie baby website that looks like it hasn't seen a CSS update since Netscape Navigator was a thing. My 11-month-old son is...

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Vintage 90s stuffed animals sitting in a plastic storage bin in an attic

The Brutal Truth About Beanie Baby Value and Nursery Safety

I'm sitting on the freezing concrete floor of my parents' garage in the Chicago suburbs, staring at three massive plastic tubs filled with Princess Diana bears and tie-dye lobsters. My mom is standing over me, casually mentioning that this plastic...

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A dusty plastic storage bin filled with colorful 90s plush animal toys

The Beanie Baby Delusion: Why I Booted My Childhood Collection

I was standing ankle-deep in fiberglass insulation in my parents' attic last Thanksgiving, holding a massive, dust-caked Rubbermaid tub. Inside was what my 1998 brain calculated to be roughly $40,000 worth of brightly colored plush toys. I actually looked at...

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Vintage Ty plush toys sitting on a nursery shelf next to modern organic baby products

Finding An August 3rd Beanie Baby: The Truth About Birthday Twins

It was exactly 2:14 AM on a Tuesday, I was wearing Dave’s grey college track pants with a crusty spot of peach yogurt on the left knee, and I was literally locked in a high-stakes bidding war with a stranger...

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