Most serious collectors are familiar with the New York City Toy Fair signed light blue Decade bears. Brief recap – on Feb 16, 2003 at the NYC Toy Fair at the Javits Center, Ty Warner personally signed 100 light blue decade bears in gold, and addressed them to recipients by name. Typically, around five of these examples are on ebay at any present time. These pieces fall under the “extremely rare” category, and typically sell in the $500-$1000 range. A majority of these 100 pieces have survived/been brought to market given the high amount of publication around the event itself (Ty Warner personally signing pieces!) and the die-hard collectors who showed up early to secure their spot for one of these bears – most exampes made it in to very serious collectors’ hands, and were preserved.
Much lesser known – in October/November/Q4 of 2003 – via Ty Trade, Ty ran a very special contest where he sent out 43 ty signed Decade bears in various colors (confirmed quantity by letter). With this bear was a special letter congratulating the recipient. Now, Ty made Decade in 10 colors (brown, royal blue, gold, green, light blue, orange, pink, purple, red, and white). It is unclear how many of each respective color Ty signed, or if he even signed at least one of all colors. Locating even one surviving example is a beyond difficult task. It isn’t clear if a “set” exists. Pictures below of a surfaced royal example, and one red example. We are guessing Ty did not sign any more light blue examples, perhaps allowing him to sign 4-5 examples per color.
Rarity Tier: Elite Rare*
As an entire category, these bears are ELITE rare, with a maximum of 43 possible examples. Though we imagine only a fraction of these have survived. By individual color, we are in Ghost Rare/Elite Ghost Rare territory if we guess only a few examples per color. Though it is possible Ty only used 2-3 colors for the entire run. This area is still absolutely under investigation, but a fun area that hasn’t been written about in detail.
Rarest Beans 