Shopping Product Reviews

Brownie the Bear Beanie Baby – History and Forged Information

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Brownie the Bear is a “lying down” style bear with brown plush fabric and a tan snout. Brownie is considered a “pre-Beanie” meaning it is rare and hard to find because it was only sold at retail for a very short time.

Brownie the Bear was one of the first nine Beanie Babies to be introduced in 1993 at the World Toy Fair in New York City. These first nine caps would become known as the “Original Nine”.

The “Original Nine” Beanie Babies were Brownie the Bear, Flash the Dolphin, Spot the Dog, Legs the Frog, Squealer the Pig, Patti the Platypus, Chocolate the Moose, Splash the Whale, and Pinchers the Lobster.

Brownie the Bear has style number 4010 printed on the hangtag. Brownie doesn’t have a birthday and she doesn’t have a poem.

Brownie only has the first generation hang tag and a black and white tush tag from 1993.

The first generation tag is a single heart-shaped piece of card that attaches to the hat with a plastic snap. The first generation label is two-sided and a single sheet of cardstock. State-of-the-art tags open like a locket. The first generation hang tag has “ty” printed on the front of the tag in a lowercase white font that is much thinner and smaller than current tags.

The first generation hang tag is printed with “The Beanie Babies Collection”, the Beanie’s style number and name.

Brownie was quickly retired, meaning the Ty corporation stopped making Brownies. Brownie was replaced by Cubbie the Bear.

Cubbie the Bear is physically identical to Brownie the Bear in color and size. The only thing that makes them different from each other is the fact that both bears have their name printed on their first generation hang tag. Other than that, the first generation Cubbie and Brownie are identical.

So if you switch the hangtags on the two bears, no one will know which one is really the Brownie or the Cubbie. And if you were to remove the hang tag from Brownie, you wouldn’t know if it was a Brownie or a Cubbie. So you can’t really sell a Brownie the Bear as a “Brownie” if it doesn’t have a hang tag. It might as well be a Cubbie if it has the black and white tush tag.

Brownie sold in the $3,000 to $4,000 price range in 1998. As of 2013, Brownie was selling in the $500 to $1,000 price range on eBay.

Because Brownie was so valuable, many fakes were made. Instead of making a counterfeit Brownie with a counterfeit hang tag, it would have been much easier if the counterfeiter bought a Cubbie with a first generation hang tag without a hang tag on eBay and then attached a first generation counterfeit hang tag to it. Instead, the counterfeiters tried to duplicate both the Beanie and the tags and made a big mistake with the fake hang tag.

Every counterfeit Brownie I’ve ever seen had the wrong generation heart tag on it. Like I said earlier, Brownie the Bear only came with a first generation heart tag which is a single sheet of cardstock. All the counterfeit Brownies I’ve seen have the second generation heart tag that opens like a locket.

If you’re a Beanie Baby collector, you’ll want to add Brownie the Bear to your collection if you get the chance to pick one up for a good price. Just do an “advanced” search on eBay for “completed auctions only” for “Brownie the Bear Beanie” to see what they’ve sold for the last 90 days. You want to make a note of the ones that actually sold and not what they were listed for. Try to buy one at the lower end of the price range and you’ll get a good deal.

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