Gifts
C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E
Beanie Babies
28 Photo by Dominique
Godbout via Flickr
BEANIE BABIES,
1995 Classes to Classics
Connecting people 62 and
better to everything from current
events to ancient art
THEN: Why own one
Beanie Baby when you
could own 1,000? The fad
started with the original
nine beanies in 1993 (Legs
the Frog, Squealer the Pig, Spot the Dog, Flash the Dolphin, Splash
the Whale, Chocolate the Moose, Patti the Platypus, Brownie the
Bear and Pinchers the Lobster), each with a birthday and short
note on the Ty tag. Ty Warner of Chicago made a fortune from the
beaned-stuffed animals. When Ty, Inc. retired the product in De-
cember 1999, consumers decided that wasn’t an option and new
generations were released.

NOW: The collectables still go for a steep price, though they
don’t actually do anything other than look cute on a shelf. At its
peak, the $5 beanies were flipped for 1,000 percent mark-ups on
eBay, according to The Fiscal Times, making up 10 percent of
eBay’s sales. The fad that went for thousands of dollars has faded,
though some sellers still have hope that buyers will
bid on a set of three first edition glass-encased Prin-
cess Diana beanies — for $652,200.

TICKLE ME ELMO, 1996
A one-minute walk to book clubs and
educational discussions. A ten-minute ride
to art galleries and universities. When it
comes to enriching experiences, our Abington
Township Life Plan Community is in a class
of its own.

Life at Rydal Park is exceptionally vibrant.

THEN: Tickle Me Elmo topped many young chil-
dren’s lists, though it was evident at glance that
Elmo’s laugh is quite possibly the most annoying
and haunting sound of the holiday season (next to
Furbies). After Thanksgiving, the 400,000 supply
quickly ran out, which instigated violence over the
furry red plushie. Some were scalped for thou-
Elmo toy
sands of dollars, People reported, as opposed to Photo by Tiffany
Terry via Flickr
its $29.99 retail price.

Creative Commons
Tickle Me Elmo made a second crazed appear-
ance in 2006 for its 10th anniversary, which helped jump Mattel’s
profits that year by 6 percent, as reported by the Associated Press.

NOW: Searching through Amazon and eBay, a couple original
Elmos, still harnessed in their boxes, go for just about the same
amount, if not less. However, the hype of the doll still holds strong
— or at least for a collector. One “vintage” Elmo on Amazon goes
for $109, but only one left in stock, so order soon.

FURBY, 1998
1515 The Fairway, Rydal, PA 19046 | 215-814-0420
Find our events at ExploreRydalPark.org.

30 NOVEMBER 23, 2017
THEN: Does anyone else still wake up in
the middle of the night feeling like you’re
being watched by a furry hamster-owl ro-
bot hybrid? Just me? Supposedly that was
the appeal of the original Furby, with its
“artificial intelligence”-like murmuring
Furby that developed more English than “Fur-
Photo via
Wikimedia bish” the more it “grew.”
Commons Originally sold for $35, the holiday
craze rushed prices up to $100 or more for some, reaching 1.8 mil-
lion sold in 1998 and 14 million in ’99, TIME wrote.

For those who may not remember, Furbies often “woke up” in
the middle of the night squealing a high-pitched “I love you.” They
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