Author Archives: rarestbeans

This rare bear was a complete surprise. Ty had gotten into the habit of releasing a yearly exclusive at the Hong Kong Toy Fair. His first release, the 2010 bear, went unnoticed until the 2011 bear was released well over a year later. It turns out he created a bear for the Kids Russia ToyContinue reading “Ty Mitya Kids Russia Toy Fair 2017 Teddy Bear Beanie”

Tyriffic Store Prototypes typically garnered a fair bit of press. Many of the prominent publications in the late 90’s/early 2000’s wrote articles about prototypes, and were granted access to pieces that had been or were currently on display at one of Ty’s special Tyriffic stores. Two famous bumble prototypes did in fact survive, and theyContinue reading “Prototype Tyriffic Bumbles!”

This is a real treat to see. From a distance, this may look like a Velvet beanie baby, but upon closer inspection, we see the piece has solid black eyes, nose, and whiskers. It also has a black and orange striped patch – a patch of fabric used on the original. This is in factContinue reading “Prototype SOLID BLACK Original Stripes with patch”

Billionaire 2 to this day is still the most challenging and expensive bear in the billionaire series to secure. The production version has a unique “tylon” fabric with two bright green dollar signs adorning its chest. This is another production piece that is still quite challenging to secure. This is our absolute favorite surviving prototypeContinue reading “Prototype INVERSE Ty Billionaire 2 Teddy Bear: Green and Magenta!”

The original Billionaire #1 bear was released to Ty Employees on 9.26.1998. Several prototypes for this piece were made, but this one is perhaps our favorite, and most distinctive. A distinctive green sparkle nose paired with green ears, arms, and feet really make this piece pop. This piece still has the unique two-toned brown furContinue reading “Prototype Ty Billionaire #1 Bear: Green and Brown!”

In ~May 1998, Ty opened a few Ty-Riffic stores in prominent airport terminals. Chicago (O’Hare) held the first/flagship store, with at least one other store (in Pittsburgh) that followed. These stores carried only Ty products and became huge collecting draws because they housed many of Ty’s best prototypes on loan from Ty. Ty removed allContinue reading “Ty-Riffic Store + Prototype Ty-Riffic ORANGE and BROWN Roary”

This is the elusive and mythical UK Billionaire #1 Bear. Its story is similar to the Canadian Billionaire #1 bear – Ty released this piece in an extremely limited quantity to top executives of Ty UK. It is also signed and numbered out of three (!) and has an identical hang and tush tag toContinue reading “United Kingdon (UK) “GRAY” Billionaire 1 Bear”

Little known fact, Ty created multiple versions of the original Billionaire 1 bear released back in 1998. The regular (rare) Billionaire 1 bear is said to have had ~1400 examples made – with each Ty employee receiving two examples. The history, rarity, and pricing of this capstone piece is widely available on other sites. ButContinue reading “Canadian “GREEN” Billionaire 1 Bear”

Fitting with his symmetrical mind, Ty did release a counterpart to the mythical gold nose mc bear. This one dubbed the red nose MC Beanie Bear. This bear sports a red sparkle nose, and a similar emblem, but with a dark brown background. This piece was also made for Mastercard executives. All examples of thisContinue reading “The Red Nose MC Beanie Bear”

This is one of those pieces that was legend even at Ty Inc! Myth became reality when the existence of the gold nose MC Beanie Bear was confirmed. Ty created only two examples to be gifted to top executives at Mastercard. He signed both examples in gold ink. The piece itself has a special goldContinue reading “The Gold Nose MC Beanie Bear”