Category Archives: Uncategorized

The “#1” in a series (Billionaire bears, Coral Casino, #1 rep bear, etc.) has always been shrouded in mystery and allure. Always rumored to have been kept by Mr. Warner/his family. We have covered a few “#1 of’s” so far (#1 #1 bear, #1 UK Billy, #1 Canadian Billy). Here we have the #1 BillionaireContinue reading “Ty Billionaire #2 Bear #1 of 475!”

There are three known Coral Casino protos that involve variations of the production coral and teal color schemes. A reminder that the Coral Casino was given out exclusively to Coral Casino club members on 11/9/2001. Ty Warner owns the club, and made the bear for its 588 members in Santa Barbara. This piece remains elusiveContinue reading “Ty Coral Casino Prototype Beanie Baby Trio: CORAL and Tie-dyed TEAL”

Another famous Tyriffic Store Nana! This piece’s brother is the cream and blue Nana reviewed in an earlier post. The two royal blue Nanas are among our most favorite prototypes in the entire hobby. This guy was actually the final Tyriffic Prototype Nana to surface. Once the confusion had been sorted about the existence ofContinue reading “Nana the Blue and YELLOW PROTOTYPE Monkey – Tyriffic”

Continuing our holiday teddy tour, we have prototypes for the first four holiday teddies released in the beanie baby line. What a treat! All four are complete with pax hang and pax tush tags, and graded as “MWMT MQ” by True Blue Beans. 1997 Holiday Teddy: While there are in fact several known prototypes forContinue reading “1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 Ty Holiday Teddy Prototypes”

We just connected a few dots, and decided to do a single post for this set of pieces. We reviewed the New Face Cranberry Teddy Holiday bear in a recent post. It turns out that it is a part of an original Holiday Teddy prototype set – with all pieces having original 1994 pax dates.Continue reading “1994 New Face Holiday Ty Teddy Original Prototype set of 6 Bears”

Ty did in fact make a Nana prototype in STUNNING (Happy fabric) lavender and (Happy fabric) gray (easy way to keep these shades in order). Following down our theory that Ty tried to use every original fabric shade on his favorite styles via prototype designs (teddies + Nana), here we have the only known NanaContinue reading “Nana the LAVENDER AND GRAY PROTOTYPE Monkey”

Long before Ty introduced his original 1997 Holiday Teddy in October of 1997, he had created several ultra special prototype holiday teddies he, conceivably, wanted to release. Here we have a 1994 dated RASPBERRY New Face teddy holiday prototype! Only Ty will know why he didn’t release an official holiday teddy until 1997. This pieceContinue reading “New Face Raspberry Teddy Holiday Prototype Bear!”

We outlined the production version of Mitya – the red Russian bear given out at the 2017 Kids Russia Toy Fair. Only about 50 examples were made, with 10-15 pieces rescued. Here we have the three known prototypes for that piece. Again, recall Ty’s intense focus on symmetry. The Russian flag is comprised of threeContinue reading “Ty Mitya PROTOTYPE Teddy Set: Blue, White, and Red. Russia Toy Fair Bears”

We have on record five fully baked, completed Billionaire 2 prototypes. Fully baked – meaning, all pax hang and tush tags, with a signature fuzz fabric that was unveiled with the production Billionaire 2 bear’s release. There are several Billionaire 2 prototypes without pax tags/with minimal departure features from production. Behold, the two cream BillionaireContinue reading “Billionaire 2 Cream Bear Teddy PROTOTYPES: Executive Set”

This is the famous “Dollar Teddy” prototype. This piece came out of an exceptionally large prototype lot back during proto gate. The other famous pieces found with this guy included the Picasso Teddy and the Shaggy Teddy. While these guys are “later” prototypes, they captured the collecting community by storm because they were SO farContinue reading “THE Dollar Teddy Bear Prototype”