BEANIE CARDS INFO & PICS

There are 4 styles of cards:

Style 1 is used for cards 1 through 9, the original 9 beanies. These cards are clear plastic and they are NUMBERED. Except I have a #9 Squealer without a number! ;(  SEE PICTURES BELOW!

Style 2 is used for cards 10 through 24. These cards have a shiny holographic background.

Style 3 is used for cards 25 through 49. A shiny foil is used for the names on these cards.

Style 4 is used for cards 50 through 149. These cards have a raised imprint of each beanie.

There are 8 different puzzle cards. Puzzle cards do not have numbers.
(the puzzle cards in alphabetical order)
1 = "Born to be Wild", 2 = "It's a Dog's Life", 3 = "Star Spangled Beanies",
4 = "The Faces of Teddy", 5 = "The Original Nine", 6 = "Tropical Heat Wave",
7 = "Winter Beanie Wonderland", 8 = Dogs/Jungle with no name.

There are 8 different "slide" cards. A "slide" card is 5" x 6.5" and one comes inside each box of 24 packs. Each slide card has a picture from one of the puzzle cards. There is no slide card for puzzle card 8 and there are two slide cards from puzzle card 5.

There are 4 versions of cards 1 through 49:

Styles 1, 2 and 3 come in four versions that I call red, blue, silver and gold (R, B, S, G) . On style 1, the words "Original 9" will be in red, blue, silver or gold ink. SEE PICTURE BELOW!   On style 2, the retired circle stamp will be in red, blue, silver or gold foil. On style 3, the beanie name will be in red, blue, silver or gold foil. With these 4 variations of cards 1 through 49, there are 296 different cards in this collection.   From my collection, I would say the red versions are the most abundant, blue is second and the silver versions are the toughest to find. Gold cards are just IMPOSSIBLE!! If you include the puzzle and slide cards, there are 312 different cards in this first edition. 

Yes there are signed cards and many folks would consider this a 5th VERSION of cards 1 through 49.  I have yet to see a "signature" card signed by Mr. Ty Warner.  The rumor is that Mr. Warner signed one each of the 4 versions for each card.  That would make 196 signed cards (4x49) for Edition 1.  These signature cards have gone for BIG BUCKs on the ebay auction site.

There appears to be some discussion of the foil colors for cards 25-49. The red style is red-to-gold, the blue style can be silver-to-blue with some purple, the silver foil has NO color variation and is just plain silver. Once you see a silver card, they are very easy to tell apart from the "blue" cards. I would assume the gold cards also have NO color variation and they should be easy to tell apart from the red cards.

The official Ty Beanie Baby Collector's Cards are available only from the Beanie Babies Official Club (BBOC) aka Cyrk. Any store that carries the BBOC kits was able to order the trading cards in August 1998. To find a store that carries these cards, you need to find a Beanie store that also carries the BBOC kits and other BBOC items such as the new Ty calendars and "official" Ty heart protectors (which I dont like very much). Good luck finding those cards!

Here is my list of the numbers found on 1st Edition cards 1 through 9:

#1 Chocolate

red = 8840

blue = 3510

silver = 884

gold = 182

#2 Cubbie

red =7480

blue = 2970

silver = 748

gold = 154

#3 Flash

red = 6800

blue = 2700

silver = 680

gold = 140

#4 Legs

red = 8160

blue = 3240

silver = 816

gold = 168

#5 Patti

SOME CARDS ARE HARDER TO FIND THAN OTHERS!

Style 1 - ALL of these are TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH!

Style 2 - most of these are VERY tough, especially Peanut!

Style 3 - Tabasco #48 is IMPOSSIBLE to find!!

Style 4 - Here are some of the harder-to-find common cards:

Caw, orange Digger, Flutter, Inky, Libearty, Lucky, Rex, Righty, Ringo, Seamore, all of the colored Teddys, Tusk and white-face Zip!