Brownie the Bear Beanie Baby – History and Counterfeit Information
Brownie the Bear is a “lay-down” style bear with brown plush fabric and a tan snout. Brownie is considered a “pre-Beanie” which means that he is rare and hard to find because he was only sold at retail for a very short time.
Brownie the Bear was one of the first nine Beanie Babies that were introduced in 1993 at the World Toy Fair in New York City. These first nine Beanies would become known as the “Original Nine.”
The “Original Nine” Beanie Babies were Brownie the Bear, Flash the Dolphin, Spot the Dog, Legs the Frog, Squealer the Pig, Patti the Platypus, Chocolate the Moose, Splash the Whale and Pinchers the Lobster.
Brownie the Bear has style number 4010 printed on the hang tag. Brownie doesn’t have a birthday and it doesn’t have a poem.
Brownie only has the first generation hang tag and a 1993 black and white tush tag.
The first generation tag is a single, heart shape card stock that is attached to the Beanie with a plastic fastener. The first generation tag is two-sided and a single sheet of card stock. Later generation tags open like a locket. The first generation hang tag has “ty” printed on the front of the tag in a lower case white font which is much thinner and smaller than today’s tags.
The first generation hang tag has “The Beanie Babies Collection”, the style number and the Beanie’s name printed on it.
Brownie was quickly retired which means that the Ty corporation stopped manufacturing Brownie. Brownie was replaced with Cubbie the Bear.
Cubbie the Bear is physically identical to Brownie the Bear in color and size. The only thing that makes them different from each other is the fact that both bears have their name printed on their first generation hang tag. Other than that, the first generation Cubbie and Brownie are identical.
So if you switched the hang tags on the two bears then no one would know which one was really the Brownie or Cubbie. And if you removed the hang tag from Brownie you would not know whether it was a Brownie or a Cubbie. So you can’t really sell a Brownie the Bear as a “Brownie” if it doesn’t have a hang tag on it. It could very well be a Cubbie if it has the black and white tush tag.
Brownie sold in the $3,000 to $4,000 price range in 1998. In 2013, Brownie was being sold in the $500 to $1,000 price range on eBay.
Because Brownie was so valuable many counterfeits were made of it. Rather than making a counterfeit Brownie with a counterfeit hang tag, it would have been a lot easier if the counterfeiter purchased a Cubbie with a first generation tush tag without a hang tag on eBay and then attached a counterfeit first generation hang tag to it. Instead the counterfeiters attempted to duplicate both the Beanie and the tags and made a major mistake with the fake hang tag.
Every counterfeit Brownie I have ever seen had the wrong generation heart tag on them. As I previously stated, Brownie the Bear only came with a first generation heart tag that is a single sheet of card stock. All the counterfeit Brownies I have seen have the second generation heart tag that opens like a locket.
If you are a Beanie Baby collector then you will want to add Brownie the Bear to your collection if you have the opportunity to buy one a good price. Just do an “advanced” search on eBay for “completed auctions only” for “Brownie the Bear Beanie” to see what they have sold for the last 90 days. You want to take note of the ones that actually sold and not what they were listed for. Try to buy one at the low end of the price range and you will get a good deal.