10 "Limited Editions" People Fought Over in Stores — Millions Are Being Thrown Away Now

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: There may be a toy in a closet in your house right now that grown adults once shoved each other to get. In November of 1983, the New York Times reported that a crowd of about a thousand people stormed a Zara store in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, for Cabbage Patch Kids. A woman broke her arm, four other people were hurt, and the store manager grabbed a baseball bat to defend himself. The doll cost $21. In May of 2021, it happened again, over trading cards. Target stopped selling Pokemon cards in its stores for a while, a week after four men attacked a shopper over cards in a Target parking lot in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Those toys had everything a collectible is supposed to need. The stores couldn't keep them on the shelves, people paid scalpers several times the store price, and plenty of families put them away still in the box. Most of them sell today for about what they cost new, or less, because the shortage only lasted until the factories caught up, and the factories made them by the millions. I'll tell you now, number one is likely in a kitchen drawer or the bottom of a toy box, and it came with a Happy Meal. Number four is the one nobody sees coming, because the right ones held their value. And number three is the only one on this list you plug into the television. Every one of these ten belongs to one room of the house, the attic, and the toy box, and that room is one of nine in what it's worth. The whole house appraisal system, with real dated sales set beside the honest range, and a your task check on every entry. If you're watching on a television, point your phone's camera at the code on the screen. Otherwise, the link is in the description below. Number ten. Juju Pets. The furry robot hamsters with their little cars and a plastic ball to roll around in. In November of 2009, ABC News reported that the Toys R Us in Times Square was selling out of every shipment within hours, so the staff didn't bother putting them on the shelves. The $9 hamsters were being auctioned on eBay, for up to $60 a piece, and for a while, some went for more than $100. One shopper told ABC it was easier to get a swine flu shot. Money magazine later counted more than a million searches for them on the same auction site over that Thanksgiving weekend. Then production caught up after Christmas, and a toy expert told the magazine that all the prices fell hard. Start the whole list with one check: how many were made. The company that made Juju Pets, a small firm in St. Louis, has brought them back to stores more than once, most recently in 2024. A toy you can still buy new was never going to become scarce. Today, one online seller asked $34.95 for a lot of 23 pieces, seven hamsters, six babies, and their beds, blankets, and a carriage. That's for all 23 together, about a dollar and a half a piece, and that's an asking price. I found no 2009 hamster that sells for real money, so there's no exception on this one to send you hunting for. Your task: gather every hamster and every accessory into one bag, because these sell as a bundle or not at all. Or put fresh batteries in them and let the grandchildren chase them down the hallway, which is what they were built for. Number 9. The Tamagotchi, the egg-shaped keychain with a little screen and a pet inside that had to be fed and cleaned up after. Bandai brought it to America on May 1, 1997. On that first day, Smithsonian Magazine later recounted, "FAO Schwartz in San Francisco sold its whole stock of 3,000 by 3 in the afternoon, and the New York store sold its first 10,000 by noon the next day." Bandai reportedly told its own employees not to carry bags with the company's logo on them, for fear someone would steal the toys inside. By July of that year, about 10 million had sold. By the spring of 1998, the count was nearly 40 million around the world. Then the craze faded, the company was left with far more than anyone wanted, and it took a loss of 6 billion yen. That answers how many. The second check is the version. Bandai has reissued the Tamagotchi since 2017, so make sure yours is a 1997 original before you look anything up. In 2014, Bustle looked at online auction listings and found a new in-box 1997 Tamagotchi listed for $200 and another new in-box Tamagotchi listed for $11. Both were asking prices, and I couldn't find a recent sold price for a 1997 original that I'd trust enough to give you. If yours is an original still sealed in its package, that one deserves a careful search of the sold listings. Your task: if it's sealed, leave it sealed, because opening it can't be undone. If it's loose and still beeps, give it to a grandchild and see how long they can keep that little pet going. Number 8: The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The five heroes in colored suits and the giant robot their machines joined together to make. The Megazord. On December 23, 1993, the Tampa Bay Times reported on a Christmas, when toy stores couldn't get the hot toys in fast enough. An assistant manager at a Target in Clearwater, Florida called the Power Rangers figures in and out toys, gone almost as soon as they came in. The first five figures came in a triangle-shaped box in bright green and yellow. One collector's guide puts a loose 1993 Ranger at $12 to $20, and one still in that box at $35 to $55. The box matters most with the robots. The same guide puts the 1993 Deluxe Megazord at $125 to $175 loose, and $350 to $450 in its box. Those are a guide's ranges, so check them against what has actually sold, before you put a price on one. That gives you the whole check for this list. Three things to look at: how many were made, whether yours is the first version, and whether it's still in the box. Every price from here down comes back to those three. Your task: look for the robots and their boxes first, because every big number in that guide belongs to the robots. The single figures are cheap and well played with, so price those by the bag. Number 7. Tickle Me Elmo. The red Sesame Street doll who laughed when you tickled him. Tyco brought him out in July of 1996 for $28.99. The first run was $400,000. When those were gone after Thanksgiving, the company ordered $600,000 more, and by the end of that December it had sold every one of the million, and People Magazine reported scalpers reselling him for up to $1,500. On December 14th, a Walmart in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in Canada, held a midnight sale. When a store clerk opened a box of Elmo's, a crowd of about 300 people rushed him. He ended up in the hospital with a broken rib and a concussion. Six days later, a Los Angeles radio station's charity auction sold one Elmo for $18,500. On the first check, Elmo comes out at a million in the first year alone, with new versions every few years after, like the TMX Elmo that Fisher Price brought out in 2006. In 2024, a collectibles database wrote that an original Elmo, mint in his box, brings upward of $80 to $100. Loose and well-loved, he's more often around $30,000, which is where Bustle found most online listings back in 2014. So the exception on this one is the box. A 1996 Tyco Elmo, still in his original box, is the version to search. Your task: check the tag and the box for the Tyco name, because the later Elmos came from other companies. If he still laughs, he's been doing his real job for 30 years. Hand him to the youngest person in the house. Number 6: Furby, the big-eyed talking furry toy from Tiger Electronics. On December 5, 1998, the Deseret News, working with the Providence Journal, ran a story headlined "Furby Frenzy Fueling Face-Offs". In Lynn, Massachusetts, shoppers who had waited all night outside a Walmart found only 30 Furbies inside. Two women were hurt in a Furby stampede at a Walmart in Illinois, and in Denver, shoppers knocked over displays. 19 KB Toys stores in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts each got 200 Furbies, and each store sold out within an hour. A KB Toys district manager told the paper that as soon as this hit, it was red-hot. The store price was $30. In an online auction, a bride and groom pair of Furbies brought $188.50. As for how many were made, the same story said Tiger had already shipped more than a million and expected to reach 2 million by New Year's Eve. A Tiger spokeswoman said the company was making them as fast as it could. That was only the first Christmas. In 2014, Bustle found that most Furbies still new in the box were going for about $40, and a battered one sold for $6. The Special Editions are a different story, and we went through them in 17 more vintage treasures. For an ordinary 1998 Furby, the box makes the whole difference. The same story quoted a Brown University psychiatrist who said children would probably enjoy going sledding with a parent more than having any particular toy. Your task: If yours is boxed, search that exact color by sold price. If it's loose, find out whether it still talks. A Furby that still talks will keep a 5-year-old busy for an afternoon. Number 5 is Princess, the Purple Beanie Baby Bear. Ty announced her in October of 1997 with the proceeds going to the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, and it let stores order only 12 at a time. On Christmas Eve that year, the Washington Post found her listed for $350 and $400 at one mall. Her ticket price was $5 to $7. Then, Today reported, millions more were made the following year. A beanie expert told Today in 2022 that the most a princess usually brings is about $170, and he called the giant online asking prices bogus. That $170 is the top, and the common versions bring far less. Her tags and her versions decide which one you have, and the Beanie Baby video and the Princess Diana collectibles video each go through them. She was bought for a good cause, and that part already paid out. So far the pattern holds on every one. A store shortage measures how many people want a thing that December. A price 30 years later measures how few are left in good shape. Number 4 is the one nobody sees coming. Because this time the crowds were partly right. Pokemon cards. In April of 1999, the Deseret News reported principals in New York, New Jersey, Washington, and elsewhere banning or restricting the cards at school. By that November, the Tampa Bay Times was reporting schools in its own area banning the trading too. And in May of 2021 came that parking lot fight in Wisconsin. NBC News reported that Pokemon card sales on eBay had grown 574 percent from 2019 to 2020. On these cards, the second check, the first version, decides almost everything. So get the cards out, take one of the shiny holographic picture cards, and hold it under a lamp. Look at the right hand edge of the picture box. A drop shadow along that edge means the later unlimited printing, the most common of all. No shadow means an earlier printing. And a small black stamp at the left, just under the picture, that says first edition means the very first print run. One price tracker, in June of 2026, put the famous Charizard at $250 to $400 ungraded in the unlimited printing, $500 to $900 with no shadow and no stamp, and $3,000 to $6,000 with the first edition stamp. That stamped card is the one that held. In May of 2021, NBC reported a first edition Charizard selling for $350,100. The tracker says the top graded copies slipped back after the 2021 rush, then climbed again. A perfectly graded first edition Charizard sold for $954,800 in February of 2026. That's one card at the very top of the market, and the realistic number for a shoebox of cards is far lower. This is general guidance, so you know what to stop for. Anything that makes your heart jump gets looked at in person, by someone qualified, before it gets sold. Your task? Sort every holographic card into three piles: shadow, no shadow, and stamped. The everyday cards can go straight back to the kids who'll play with them. Number 3 is the only one on this list you plug into the television: the Nintendo Wii. When it launched in November of 2006, the Associated Press reported that it sold out quickly in many stores, the same week police had to break up rowdy crowds at some PlayStation 3 launches. A year later it was still short. In November of 2007, Fortune reported that almost 5,000 Wiis had sold on eBay since Black Friday, at an average of $420.50, for a machine that cost $250 in the store. Nintendo's president told Fortune it couldn't meet demand until early the next year. As for how many, in July of 2026, BGR reported that Nintendo sold 101.6 million Wiis, and that is why a used one costs so little. BGR found many offered on Amazon at about $80 to $130, and those are asking prices. The exception is the machine that came before it, the GameCube, which cost $199 at launch, 50 less than the Wii. It sold about $22 million, roughly a fifth as many, and BGR found refurbished GameCubes offered at $160 to $200, with a genuine GameCube controller often over 50 and some at $300 or more. Those are asking prices too, so check them against the sold listings. The less popular machine became the scarcer one. Your task: look in the cabinet under the television for a GameCube, GameCube and its controllers, before anything goes in the donation box. Keep the Wii with its remotes and cords, because a complete, working set is the easiest kind to sell or to give away. Number 2 takes us back to that store in Wilkes-Barre, the Cabbage Patch Kids, the soft-faced dolls that came with adoption papers. Xavier Roberts, an artist in Georgia, created them and sold them regionally before Coleco took the license and introduced them at the New York Toy Show in 1983. The company told Time it expected to sell about $2.5 million that season. In Charleston, West Virginia, about 5,000 shoppers flooded a department store that had 120 dolls. Dolls that cost $21 were resold for 50 to 75 in the newspaper ads, and on numbers, 3.3 million dolls shipped in 1983 alone. The panic eased in 1984, as supply caught up, and by 1985, 20 million Cabbage Patch Kids had been adopted. In online sold listings, prices for the mass-made Coleco dolls have run from about $10 to $75, depending on condition and clothes. The exception is older than the Riot, the handmade dolls Xavier Roberts signed himself, before Coleco, which we covered in 17 more vintage treasures. Your task: find the adoption papers and the box. A doll that still has both is the one to look up first. And if someone in your family went looking for her that Christmas of 1983, that's reason enough to keep her. Number 1 is the one most likely in your house right now, in a kitchen drawer or the bottom of a toy box: the McDonald's Teeny Beanie Babies. On April 11, 1997, McDonald's put Tiny Beanie Babies in its Happy Meals. A marketing trade magazine later reported that the restaurants went through 100 million Teeny Beanie Happy Meals in 10 days, 25 days ahead of schedule. One collector remembered that you couldn't get in the door for the crowds and that people were getting pretty mean about it. CNN reported customers tackling a Teeny Beanie delivery person at one restaurant. A hundred million in 10 days answers how many were made. And the promotions kept coming. McDonald's brought Teeny Beanies back in 1998, 1999, and 2000, with more made each year, while the demand fell each year. In October of 2025, Chowhound put a single Teeny Beanie at about a dollar at most, and a big lot still in the packages at up to a hundred. Lots that included the international bears, the ones people hoped were rare, have sold for $10 or less, and the site called listings in the thousands of dollars for those bears extremely overzealous. It also pointed out that tag mistakes, which can matter on a full-size beanie, are so common on the Teenies that they don't necessarily add anything. That completes the pattern. Every crowd on this list wanted the same toy in the same December, and the factories answered with millions. The things that held, the first edition cards, the boxed robots and the GameCube, are the ones that were made in smaller numbers or kept in fewer boxes. For the Teenies, the exception sits elsewhere in the same toy box, the full-size Beanie Babies from the early years with their first tags, and the Beanie Baby video goes through those. Your task: dump the drawer, keep the full-size beanies apart from the Teenies, and bag the Teenies together. Then let the grandchildren line them up along the windowsill, or send the bag to a preschool. They came with lunch, and they've already given you 29 years. The honest range for most of these 10 is small: about a dollar for a Teenie Beanie, a dollar or two a piece for the hamsters in a lot, and tens of dollars for most of the dolls, the Elmo's and the Furby's. The exceptions are the first printings, the scarcer cousins like the GameCube, and the things still in their boxes. Before you sell any of it, price it against what identical items actually sold for recently, and set aside what someone is hopefully asking, like those Teenie Beanie listings in the thousands. Listings are not prices, sold is a price. Before the toy box leaves the house, line everything up on the floor, the dolls, the Elmo, the cards and the game system, and take one photograph in daylight. It costs nothing, and it keeps the Christmas each one came from long after the toys are gone. If this helped you sort out a toy box, press like so YouTube shows it to more families doing the same, and subscribe for the next room of the house. Tell me in the comments which toy your family hunted for one Christmas, and who it was for. And the attic and toy box room I mentioned at the start, is waiting in what it's worth, linked in the description below.