In the famous Beanie Mania books, the authors (Becky Estenssoro and Becky Philips) put forward a masterful outline of every production beanie produced to that point. They also have a special prototype section that includes six very special prototypes: a dinosaur trio (Rex, Steg, and Bronty) and the tie-dyed Lizzy in a solid Ally-green fabric, with tie-dyed patches matching the eventual production fabric that would be used. With this set, they also had pictured a solid yellow flutter (with patch) and a solid violet Coral (with patch). These pieces were some of the earliest and most prominently documented and displayed prototypes the hobby had seen. Today they remain among the most famous pieces.
The set disappeared for many years after the authors sold them to a high end collector down in Florida. They surfaced after about a decade and made their way to a new private home. Little known fact, Ty in fact made two sets of these pieces. A set for himself that somehow escaped to the collecting community, and a set he gave to Bill Harlow – the head of Ty Canada. The pieces are identical outside of slight tie-dyed variations to the patches on each piece. Bill’s set, however, was missing the green Bronty. We believe this piece ended up at the Tyriffic Store (pictures in our next post). So the green Bronty in this set is the only known surfaced/surviving example.
Rarity Rank: 1-1.5. We are going to apply this rarity rank almost universally to this set, but the most prestigious is absolutely the Bronty. These are full wild alternates for iconic 3rd generation pieces. But their fame and notoriety push them a bit higher up the ladder.
Rarest Beans 