about me!

hi i'm jem/jamie!

i'm a trans man in my thirties living in aotaroa new zealand. i'm a massive dork :B

i love art, videogames and beanie babies!


childhood beanies

as a british tween in the late 90s i was obsessed with beanie babies, and my collection numbered around 30 or 40. my favs were the flat cats!! i always preferred the bean-bag style beanies and got a bit bored of the designs once they started standing up, and this plus getting older nixed my further collectioning. i passed most of my collection onto my lil sister and eventually charity shops (thats thrift stores for americans). i only kept a couple of sentimental favs (bongo and batty!)

adult collection

over a decade ago i moved to aotearoa new zealand, and became a kiwi! i have been collecting beanies as an adult since 2022. it all started when my flatmate bought me a beanie kid (cutie!) at the op-shop (thats a thrift store for americans; new country new slang) and it re-kindled my childhood obsession with beanie babies :D now I have over 500!


beanies in aotearoa

ty beanie babies are quite hard to come by in aotearoa! this is for a number of reasons:

  • relatively few were sold here in the 90s

  • a rival australian brand called skansen marketed their own beanies, first as simple knock-offs of ty beanies, then as their own brand called "beanie kids"; these were really popular and most kiwi millenials have fond memories of collecting them

  • the term "beanie babies" in aotearoa became synonymous with skansen beanies, so searching for "beanie baby" on our auction sites tends to mainly bring up skansen beanies

  • "beanie babies" is ALSO used generically for beanie boos, which i like but (mostly!) don't collect

  • we're a small country (5-6 million!) with only one major auction site alongside facebook marketplace so not many listings are ever live - and i'm fairly sure there's only a handful of us collecting across the country so the market pressures are minimal

  • still, we get a few dozen listings online! however, people are easily fooled by "most expensive beanie babies" listicles and will price low-value beanies from $50-$200

  • why not order from abroad?? well shipping of one (1) beanie from the usa can cost well over $60 T-T

so most of my beanies are sourced via op-shops and once-every-few months cheap online sales. i sometimes browse usa or uk ebay and weep looking at my wishlist favs going for $7 plus $68 shipping! but tbh, the best part of any collection is the thrill of the hunt; if it was too easy, would i love it as much??

this is a country-wide search on our main auction site:

almost none of these are beanie babies :(