PicoVibe

Financial bubbles occur when a product begins to rapidly rise in value until it eventually pops, causing destitution to all those involved. Some bubbles, like the housing bubble that eventually burst in 2008, are reasonable. After all, a house is actually, you know, a useful thing to have — others, like the fabled Tulip-mania in the Netherlands, are just totally stupid. The Beanie Babies bubble was the latter. As the value of Beanies began to rise, people dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and get a piece of the action. Since the Beanie Babies bubble occurred nearly twenty years ago, many have forgotten how seriously some unfortunate people took it.

One couple who divorced in 1999 actually had to take their Beanie Babies collection (valued between $2500 and $5000) to the courtroom so a judge could divide it fairly, since they were unable do it themselves. There's also the story of Chris Robinson, whose father became obsessed with collecting Beanie Babies and planned to use them in the future to pay his son's college tuition. At the time, it seemed reasonable, since collector's manuals were showing rosy projections for the future, while rarer models of the toys were selling for ten times their value. In the end, it led to financial destitution, after Robinson's father spent a freaking $100,000 on 20,000 Beanie Babies that are now worth just pennies on the dollar. The whole Beanie Babies fad isn't so innocent anymore, now is it?

But, wait, it gets even worse ...

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