S E R I E S - II

Beanie Baby Limited Edition COLLECTOR'S CARDS are a big new hit! The first series is IMPOSSIBLE to find in the stores right now, and the new SERIES II is rumored to be already sold out!! It seems as if secondary dealers grabbed them all up and you can find them conveniently at your closest flea markets for around $75/unopened box, sitting right next to all the new bears that the official stores never seem to have gotten (WHAT A JOKE!!)!! At a recent show the mint unopened boxes of Series I cards were to be had at $95/box.

 

What are they, how many are there and what kinds are available? WHICH ARE THE HARDEST TO FIND? WHICH ARE THE RAREST COMMON CARDS? WHAT COMMONS ARE THE EASIEST TO FIND?

 

As a guide for Beanie Card collectors, I am adding some general info on these really kewl SERIES II (1st Edition) trading cards. What I ask myself, does the "1st Edition" on the pack mean there may be other editions in the works?

 

Some of them are found in four different colors, in order of increasing rarity : BLUE, GREEN, SILVER and GOLD (on the following table as B G S X).

 

There are also several extra special cards actually signed by Ty Warner!!

MY STATISTICS

These numbers will be updated when and IF I am able to acquire more factory sealed boxes of cards.

 

There are 24 packs of cards per box. A friend was nice enough to send me 6 unopened boxes, each taken from a DIFFERENT case, from the Midwest, at cost. I found 2 boxes at a small local shop. The 5-6 larger places I usually visit around me in Central New Jersey were SOLD OUT or said they never received any!!

 

One pack of cards may contain from 8 to 11 cards, including the Trivia Card. This time there is NO note on the pack saying how many cards should be in it!! They DO add a note that "A full set is not guaranteed"!! WOW, what a surprise revelation!!

 

The pack now contains a "Trivia Game Card" instead of the Puzzle Card from Series I. Each box also has a folded full-sized BBOC Trading Card Poster having the Series I cards on one side and the Series II on the other.

 

Out of a total of eight factory sealed boxes, containing a TOTAL of 1739 cards (= 192 packs), I found the following :

1 BLUE Bear Card

23 BLUE Retired Cards

11 GREEN Retired Cards

11 SILVER Retired Card

0 GOLD Retired Cards

31 BLUE Birthday Cards

12 GREEN Birthday Cards

9 SILVER Birthday Cards

0 GOLD Birthday Cards

3 BLUE Rookie Card

4 GREEN Rookie Cards

1 SILVER Rookie Card

0 GOLD Rookie Cards

194 Trivia Cards

8 Card Posters

1439 Common Cards

C A R D - G U I D E

S E R I E S - II

With Actual Scans

CARD TYPES	LOOK FOR	NUMBER
The RARE Bears B G S X	limited edition number 1 per 192 packs	limited edition # x 4 colors = 12
Rookie Cards B G S X	"ROOKIE" in violet rectangle, center left BLUE - 1 per 64 packs GREEN - 1 per 48 packs SILVER - 1 per 192 packs GOLD - 0 per 192 packs 1 per 24 packs	# 250 - 273 x 4 colors = 96
Retired Cards B G S X	oval "RETIRED" logo, lower left BLUE - 1 per 8 packs GREEN - 1 per 17 packs SILVER - 1 per 17 packs GOLD - 0 per 192 packs 1 per 4 packs	# 274 - 288 x 4 colors = 60
Birthday Cards B G S X xxxxxxxxxxxxx Beanies with NO Birthday	Beanie birthday, upper center BLUE - 1 per 6 packs GREEN - 1 per 16 packs SILVER - 1 per 21 packs GOLD - 0 per 192 packs 1 per 4 packs	# 250 - 273 x 4 colors = 96
Common Cards	raised Beanie image 7-11 per pack	# 150 - 249 = 100
Trivia Game Card	scratch-off Beanie trivia quiz 1 per pack (1 with 2)	?
Card Poster	1 per box	1
WHOLE SET	ALL OF ABOVE	365 +

THE 13 RAREST COMMON CARDS

Be On The Lookout For These

CARD NUMBER	BEANIE NAME	# PER 192 PACKS
151	1998 HOLIDAY TEDDY	7
161	CHILLY , the Polar Bear	7
164	CUBBIE , the Brown Bear	7
172	FORTUNE , the Panda	7
162	CHOCOLATE , the Moose	8
171	FLASH , the Dolphin	8
150	1997 HOLIDAY TEDDY	9
154	BESSIE , the Brown Cow	9
156	BRONTY , the Brontosaurus	9
160	CANYON , the Cougar	9
174	GERMANIA , the German Bear	9
179	HIPPIE , the Ty-Dye Bunny	9
249	Zip , the Cat with White Paws	9

The six MOST found COMMON Cards are :

# 247 ZERO (23 per 192 packs)

# 222 SLY (22 per 192 packs)

# 240 VIOLET TEDDY o.f. (22 per 192 packs)

# 231 STRUT (21 per 192 packs)

# 242 TRAP (21 per 192 packs)

# 244 VALENTINA (21 per 144 packs)

N O T E S

I organized my data on paper on which I drew squares for the different cards, sort of like a SPREADSHEET, and entered the numbers of cards found.

CARD ERRORS

Since the card printing process probably takes each sheet of uncut cards through several separate processes, it is not uncommon to get different kinds of mistakes during final processing.

 

I theorize that each full sheet is printed in color, the two sides at once OR each side on separate presses depending on their printing setup (the card in general), the critter is embossed on another embossing press, the foil done with yet another and THAT embossing on a different one. The Birthday, Rookie, Retired and Bear cards seem to have been "laminated/plasticized" in a separate process.

 

I assume that mistakes "may" be caught at the full-sheet OR cut-card stages of operation. The full-sheet control would virtually elliminate the error, while catching them at the cut-card stage of the game may lead to more individual card errors NOT being eliminated-- BUT they would be minimal, possibly limited to the number/sheet OR only the ones they did not remove in the final controls, IF there be any.

 

People will be finding MISTAKES on their cards, including print or images offset from where they should be, and raised figure outlines on the Common cards which DO NOT coincide with the Beanie figure!! Some of these mistakes are ONLY found by looking closely ar each and every card!!

 

WOW, in my bunch of cards I found

1) OFFSET RETIRED cartouches on Magic and Lizzy GREEN cards.

Let's assume that a full sheet of print stock is 4 cards wide by 9 cards long (I have NO idea how large the sheets are-- this is just a guestimate). That gives us a total of some 36 cards/sheet. Let's also say that some measure of "quality control" is present, and before/after cutting, some of these "error" sheets/cards are removed. That translates into : these errors are VERY RARE and, IF ALL the cards produced were tallied, we might find a handfull of the same or similar error.

 

2) OFFSET critter impressions on 3 Common Cards, one each of Digger, Mel and Ants. I found NONE of this error type in my Series I cards!

 

The same "rarety" analysis as above would hold true here.

Here are LINKS to sites with "Value Guides" for these Beanie Trading cards

Another BBOC Trading Card Resource Page

CINDY's Card Site

CRITTERPATCH

Fun Zone

SONNY's SERIES I Info

Speculative Price Guide

Trading Card Price Guide

Ty has registered patents/trademarks on all of his stuff, including critter names, logos, poems and whatever else he can get. This site has absolutely NO connection with that billion dollar corporation, neither does Ty endorse this site in any way, nor pay me even a cent for all the advertising I give his kewl products.