Rare Princess Diana Beanie Baby value overstated, collector site says
A story about a British couple buying a $15 Beanie Baby at a garage sale is being greeted with skepticism by collectors.
Initial reports from the Daily Mail and Sun (UK) said the collector's item might be worth over $93,000.
It's a rare, first-edition Princess Diana beanie baby that was made after her death in 1997. It's believed that there are only 100 in existence.
The couple has put the toy up for auction on eBay and say they will use the money they get on the deposit for a house.
But collector sites are warning Beanie Baby fans that they shouldn't get their hopes up, because it's frequent practice on eBay for people to post high asking prices in the hopes of getting more money for their item. The $93,000 figure was based on a similar item that was already listed on eBay.
"In an irresponsible and non-professionally researched newspaper article on April 18, 2015, the UK Daily Mail and The Sun (UK) provided misleading information about Princess Beanie Baby values. Once again, tycollector.com was inundated with emails from people in the UK and Ireland hopeful that their Princess Beanie Baby was worth a lot of money and asking for the best way to sell theirs.
The writer of the original article (as is usual with these types of articles) used "listing" prices on eBay, as opposed to the prices buyers have actually paid for Princess over the past 30 - 60 days, to support the premise that Princess is valuable. One cannot avoid speculation about the credibility of ANY article in the UK Daily Mail or The Sun, when those online magazines/newspapers permit such a misleading article as the one about the Princess Beanie Baby to be published.
We are truly sad so many peoples' hopes were mistakenly raised by reading a fraudulent article that suggested they might own a rare and valuable Princess Beanie Baby."
