{"product_id":"2940169409932","title":"The Great Beanie Baby Bubble: Mass Delusion and the Dark Side of Cute","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA bestselling journalist delivers the never-before-told story of the plush animal craze that became the tulip mania of the 1990s\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the annals of consumer crazes, nothing compares to Beanie Babies. In just three years, collectors who saw the toys as a means of speculation made creator Ty Warner, an eccentric college dropout, a billionaire-without advertising or big-box distribution. Beanie Babies were ten percent of eBay's sales in its early days, with an average selling price of $30-six times the retail price. At the peak of the bubble in 1999, Warner reported a personal income of $662 million-more than Hasbro and Mattel combined.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe end of the craze was swift and devastating, with \"rare\" Beanie Babies deemed worthless as quickly as they'd once been deemed priceless.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBissonnette draws on hundreds of interviews (including a visit to a man who lives with his 40,000 Ty products and an in-prison interview with a guy who killed a coworker over a Beanie Baby debt) for the first book on the strangest speculative mania of all time.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47162219233520,"sku":"2940169409932","price":17.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940169409932_p0.jpg?v=1763681697","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940169409932","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}