And you thought your investments had tanked: Studies in Crap rages against The Beanie Baby Handbook

Each Thursday, your Crap Archivist brings you the finest in

forgotten and bewildering crap culled from area basements, thrift

stores, estate sales and flea markets. I do this for one reason:

Knowledge is power.

The Beanie Baby Handbook

Author: Les & Sue Fox

Publisher: Scholastic

Date: 1998

Discovered at: Maj-R Thrift, W. 47th Street

The Cover Promises: Your toys

are commodities.

Representative Quotes:

“Basically, if you can afford to do

this, simply putting away five or ten of each and every new Beanie

Baby in super mint condition isn’t a bad idea.” (page 27).

“As seasoned McDonald’s collectors,

we had little doubt that $2 would be less than the future value of

any Teenie Beanie. Unfortunately, we were only able to accumulate 500

or so Beanies during the mad rush.” (page 190)

A heartless, mercenary endeavor that

strips whatever innocence remains in childish hording, Les & Sue

Fox’s The Beanie Baby Handbook teaches kids that fun, imagination, and all of the other qualities we love in toys get in the way of profitability.

Instead, the Foxes encourage kids to become stuffed-animal

speculators.