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Beanie Babies were cute. It's not hard to understand why kids and grownups alike got caught up in buying and collecting them.

But, like all fads, collecting Beanie Babies did fizzle out.

One reason for this is that the Ty company began greater production, making the hard to find critters a little easier to find; this contributed to taking the challenge out of collecting them.

A second reason is the distributors. Toy shop owners and others who signed on with Ty to sell the Beanie Babies found it difficult to not get caught up in the trend. Some made the choice to sell the popular versions - those that collectors were the most anxious to get their hands on - to other stores or to other dealers who sold them at a higher price. This seemed win-win to them: they made more on each toy and it continued to drive the fad because it made the toys harder to find. But buyers caught on, and found themselves frustrated and eventually lost interest.

A third reason is the buyers themselves. Parents got tired of looking for hard to find Beanies. Kids got tired of spending their entire allowance on toys - especially as they got older and started wanting to spend money on clothing and going to the movies with friends.

Some collectors also started to see that there was more money selling their collections while the fad was at its hottest. Some took the same route as the shop owners and sold their collections to Beanie Baby specialists who bought the most valuable and sold them again for even more; others sold the bears and others from their collection (or even the entire collection) on eBay.

As a result, in time, even the popular and most sought after Beanie Babies were not as difficult to find - which just may have been the ultimate reason why the fad fizzled out.

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