Hello all! Ok, this is spotlespot reporting just to introduce myself i have written a true life beanie story. This is one of my best stories enjoy!!! Look out for more British beanie things that I will be adding to this page soon!!

True Story 1
True Story 2

TRUE STORY 3

On Thursday the 18th February 1999. Trying to clear what resembles a 2nd World War bombsite at home after buliders let us down completely destroying what should have been a dream kicthen turned into a catastrophe. Spotlespot had an a idea(she must of been thinking of beanies). The idea was to phone John Lewis at approximately 2pm, and take a guess, they are unpacking a new delivery. Panic ensued, with Spotlespot hunting for undies and socks amongst the rubble. Wheres my this?. Where's my that?. Car keys, Door keys dissapeared. Spotlespot's Dad took them as he moved Mum's car this morning and he must of forgot to return them to their rightful place. Trying to locate the spares in time to get to Brent Cross was like looking for a needle in a haystack with two hysterical people nearly killing each other. Is this what Ty beanie collecting is all about?. Spotlespot already missed the first delivery of 1999 at Brent Cross due to the flu, dissapointing eh. Nothing stopped her yet. Spotlespot is usually spot on.

Ten minutes later at speeds faster than usual driving Brent Cross was in sight. Hard to find a parking space in the bay. When we found a space we were sprinting past the customers in the fabric dept to the escalator. Up two floors to the toy dept. There before our eyes was a Mount Everest of Beanies. Funny, huh Halo stood out a mile he wings shone like neon lights. You definately need to know your Beanies to spot the new ones mixed up with the old collections. Saying that we managed to get one of each:

Butch, Hippy, Nibbler, Nibbly, Mooch, Prickles, Sammy, Scat and Tiny.

But no new bears, Britannias or Germanias

Never mind success means a sense of relief. At least we never missed the nine new ones that came on that beanie hunting day.

Just wanting to tell you folks about some upcoming beanie shows!

Mar 7/99 Leicestershire Hinkley Leisure Centre, Coventry Road, Hinckley, 10 Minutes from J1 M69

Mar 14/99 Southampton St Mary's Leisure Centre, St Mary's Road, Southampton, 5 Minutes from J5 M27

Mar 21/99 Bury St. Edmunds

April/May - East Anglia, Thames Vally and Swindon

          These fairs are run by Beanie Fairs UK every time you go to one of these fairs you get the chance to win Britannia bear in a raffle. I've been to one of these fairs myself. I found it really good. They alaways have 100+ tables and they are from 10:30 am to 4:00pm.

Shows by Beanie Shows (UK)

I can't personally comment on these shows because I have not payed a vist yet. They have a very good reputation by various collectors and dealers from around the UK. For more information on these shows don't hesitate to visit their website
http://www.beanieland.co.uk

March 7th (Sunday)10.30am to 4.00pm Leicestershire. Hinkley Leisure Centre, 100+ Beanie Tables.

March 14th (Sunday) 10.30am to 4.00pm Ashford Kent. Ashford International Hotel, 100+ Beanie Tables.

March 21st (Sunday) 10:30am to 4.00pm Bury St Edmunds. Moreton Hall Prep School, 50+ Beanie Tables.

March 8th 10:30am to 4:00pm Swindon. Oasis Leisure Centre, 100+ Beanie Tables.

April 4th (Sunday)Cardiff. Eastern Leisure Centre, 120+ Beanie Tables.

April 5th (Monday) Thames Vally "Bank Holiday Special". Montem Leisure Centre, 100+ Beanie Tables.

April 11th (Sunday) Milton Keynes. Bletcheley Leisure Centre, 100+ Beanie Tables.

April 18th (Sunday) London West. Brentford Fountain, Brentford Middx, 100+ Beanie Tables.

Beanie Baby stores in England

Well, here's the names of stores in England that we know of right now that carry Beanie Babies. I do not take responsibilty for the availability of beanies in this list, I just know that these stores are stores in which beanies have been sold. If you know a store that isn't on the list, please e-mail me and I will add it on. This is always a work in progress, since I find many new stores in out of the way places and new dealers are constantly being added. I do not take responsibility for anything that happens once you contact any of these stores, I am not involved in the running, ownership or anything else, if you have a problem dealing with one of these places, please contact the manager/owner at the store or TY Europe. Also be aware that most of these stores do have HTF's, with the exceptions of Britannia, Princess and Erin, but you may have to buy 4 or 5 other beanies to get the HTF beanie...unfortunately, many stores are instituting this because Ty is sending them only a few Peaces or Valentinos, for example, and dozens of currants and the dealer is stuck with mant he/she can't sell any other way. (I wounder is this was suggested by Ty to dealers, cause many new dealers are doing this.) Happy Beanie Hunting and Good Luck finding the one you really want!!!!!

BEANIE BABY STORES IN LONDON

Clintons Cards Telephone 0181 509 0960 Telephone 0171 635 0112

Eric Snook
Unit 32,The Mall,Covent Garden,London
Hamley's Toy Store
They no longer stock TY's after being caught selling Princess and Britannia. At over the retail price naughty naughty.

John Lewis Telephone 0171 629 7711
Brent cross shopping centre
Telephone 0181 202 6535
Any branch of John Lewis strongley recommend they always sell their bears at the retail price of £3.99. Well done John Lewis keep up the good work!!!

Live&Exclusive
The Trocadero,Piccadilly Circus,London W1V 7FE
Telephone 0171 434 1011
E-mail mark@sweety.demon.co.uk
One of the largest stockests of Beanies in Central London mainley priced at £4.99. But not the bears they are above retail

London Zoo
South End of Regents Park,London
Telephone 0171 722 3333
Premier collection Telephone 0181 769 0943

Rainforest Cafe Traditional Toys
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/3098/tradtoys.html Telephone 0171 352 1718
Fax 0181 617 9988
E-mail tradtoys@aol.com
Trotters Telephone 0171 730 0351

BEANIE STORES IN CAMBRIDGESHIRE

Bodylins Telephone 01354 692003

Gift Box Telephone 01353 668870

John Lewis
Queensgate Shopping Centre, Peterborough, PE1 1NL
Telephone 01733 344644

The Nature Reserve
http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Marina/9916/nr.html
Full of Beans Telephone 1061 929 1888
E-mail britfan98@aol.com

The Fragrant Oasis
Watergate Street, Chester CH1 2LB
Website
http://www.bitinternet.com/~victoria.gallery

BEANIE STORES IN CORNWALL

Bits 'N' Bobs
Kingsand, Cornwall PL10 1NA
Telephone 01752 823868

Kids Kingdom
Albert Road, St. Austell, Cornwall PL25 4TZ
Telephone 01726 77377
Fax 01726 77177

BEANIE STORES IN CO DURHAM

Country Homes & Gifts
http://www.ctoys.com/bmall.countryu.html Telephone 01207 520228

BEANIE STORES IN DEVON

Lesley's
http://wwww.geocities.com/enchantedforest/3098/lesleys.html Telephone 01395 443954

BEANIE STORES IN ESSEX

Toy Stack
Unit 283, Lakeside Shopping Centre, West Thurrock, Greys RM20 2ZQ
Telephone 01708 861706
Exchange Shopping Centre, Lay Street, Ilford, Essex IG1 1AT
Unit 83, High Road, Ilford, Essex IG1 1AT
Telephone 0181 514 0420

BEANIE STORES IN HAMPSHIRE

Bees party worldTelephone 01703 282666 Telephone 01703 630330

Christina Ring
Beaulieu Road, Dibden Purlieu, Southampton, Hampshire
Telephone 01703 845749

Daisy's Shop
High Street, Hythe, Southampton, Hampshire
Telephone 01703 849201

Norris's Shop
High Street, Beaulieu, Hampshire
Telephone 01590 612005

BEANIE STORES IN HERTFORDSHIRE

Toy Stack Telephone 01923 245305

BEANIE STORES IN KENT

Farnworths Telephone 0181 313 9111
Paper Lane Telephone 0181 467 2024

Toy Stack
The Glades Shopping Centre, High Street, Bromley, Kent
Telephone 0181 464 8056

BEANIE STORES IN LANCASHIRE

P 2 Telephone 0161 763 5954

Panache Telephone 01204 524014

BEANIE STORES IN LEICESTERSHIRE

Domino Toys Telephone 0116 253 3363

First Base Telephone 0116 262 9215

The Card Shop
Unit 26, The Shires Shopping Centre, High Street, Leicester, Leicestershire LE1 4FP
Telephone 0116 253 0513

BEANIE STORES IN MIDDLESEX

Little Wounders
Toy Stack Telephone 0181 905 6826

BEANIE STORES IN NORFOLK

Discovery Store
Castle Mall Shopping Centre, Norwich

Langleys Toy Store
http://www.westsuffolk.ac.uk/beanies/info/langlays Telephone 01603 621959
Fax 01603 666748

Tesco Superstore
Norwich Road, Thetford, Norfolk

Toy Stack Telephone 01603 630601

BEANIE STORES IN NOTTINGHAMSHIRE

Toy Stack
Unit 306, Victoria Centre, Glasshouse Street, Nottingham NG1 3QN
Telephone 0115 924 2739

BEANIE STORES IN OXFORDSHIRE

Bonnie Fashions Telephone 01865 247768

Boswell H & Co Telephone 01865 241244

Flaggs Menswear Telephone 01865 722258

Occasions Unlimited
Lamb Arcade, High Street, Wallingford, Oxfordshire OX10 0BS
Telephone 01491 833800

The Shop Telephone 01865 558328

BEANIE STORES IN SUFFOLK

Old Forge Gift Centre Telephone 01638 714786

RAF Postoffice (Honnington)
Honnington, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Telephone 01359 269215
Suffolk Doll Company Telephone 01473 827600

Tesco Superstore
Creeting Road, Stowmarket, Suffolk
Telephone 01449 672146

BEANIE STORES IN SURREY

The Bear Garden
http://www.beargarden.co.uk Telephone 01483 302581

Toy Stack Telephone 0181 686 3019

With Love Telephone 01372 722113
E-mail BOB291039@aol.com

BEANIE STORES IN THE WEST MIDLANDS

Ace of Crawley Telephone 01293 565655
Fax 01293 540888
E-mail aceatace@aol.com

BEANIE STORES IN WEST SUSSEX

Moments Cards
Wulfrun Way, Wulfrun Centre, Wolverhampton, West Midlands WV1 3HG
Telephone 01902 714900

Toy Stack
Unit 62, Country Mall, Crawley RH10 1FD
Telephone 01293 533364

BEANIE STORES IN WORCESTERSHIRE

Cotsworld Trading Co Telephone 01386 853331

Kingfisher Telephone 01386 48218
Fax 01386 48218

BEANIE STORES IN YORKSHIRE

Animals Telephone 0113 2459307 Telephone 0114 256 8664

C S Lobley Ltd Telephone 01977 672472
Fax 0870 0553972
E-mail beanies@bugsley.demon.co.uk

Fundamental
Kirkgate, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD1 1SZ
Telephone 01274 727004
Fax 01274 727004

Kool Collectables
http://www.koolcollectables.com/intro.html
Wrays Telephone 01723 360102

UK Motoway Service areas
Road Chef Services
South of the London M25 orbital, Clackets Lane(eastbound)and (westbound)
M8, Harthill
M74, Bothwell
M74, Hamilton
A1(M), Durham
M6, Killington Lake
M6, Sandbeach
M4, Port Abraham
M5, Taunton Deane
M27, Rownhams
M20, Maidstone

UK Airports
London Heathrow Airport - Terminal 2
WH Smiths, Terminal 2.

London Heathrow Airport - Terminal 4
Hamley's Toy Store. Terminal 4 - you must be flying out that day, as you will need to show a bording pass.
WH Smiths, Terminal 4.

Mail Order and Shipping to the UK and International:

Beanie Store
http://www.beaniestore.com/bean ie.html

Kool Collectables
http://www.koolcollectables.com

UK beanie baby on-line
http://193.128.221.33/beanies/auctions/auctinx.htm

Now every single week i will give my award to the retailer who provides the best service to collectors. So this weeks award the Spotlespot Award of Recommendation goes to the two departmaent stores Fenwicks and John Lewis Brent Cross shopping centre keep up the good work guys for keeping your prices down even when a order comes in you still charge Britannia at £3.99

These two guys are the best in London take my word for it

Fenwicks Telephone is 0181 202 8200

If anybody wants to ask me anything i will be in the chat room at 9:30PM GMT (4:30 EST).

This time I thought I would write a article about the UK retailers and how fair they really are.

Out of visting 20 stores, I found that only 2 sell any type of bear at the original retail price. Most of the other retailers charge £100+ for a Britannia or they make you buy 15-20 other beanies in order to get her. Meanwhile even through Princess has nearly lost all her value i know of several retailers who make you buy 12 in order to get her.

I found out from a retailer that any type of beanie only costs them £1.50 each. And when they sell them for £4-£8. Well they don't make enough profit as it is.

And the worst thing of all is that they are depriving children of the beanies that they need for their collections. Beanie babies are a childrens toy. I wish retailers would do more to keep it that way.

A retailer is not a secondary market dealer. And it will never be that way.

So if any retailer ever reads this my advice would be:

Keep your customers happy they butter your bread.

I know where Britannia went last Summer

Been at a local beanie fair today and i saw roughy about 20 bears with not the normal embroidered patch, NOT the sewn on patches. These Britannias were selling for £400 pounds each ($850 US dollars) pretty expensive for a fake, eh. I contacted TY today to ask about these strange Britannia Bears that have been seen, it appears that they were official Ty Britannia Bears, and that they were sewn on flags. No one knows for sure if this is a oddity, mistake, or a second generation of Britannia Bears, but as far as we know they are real. Sources in Ty said that the latest batch of Britannia Bears with the stuck on flag were not up to the quality expected from their customers. Over 10,000 Britannia Bears have been returned to Indonesia, and it seems replacements may not be in the UK until August. Within the next few weeks the 2nd Generation Britannia Bears will start to appear here in the UK stores.

It has been confirmed that the next batch of Britannia Bears will have a sewn on flag, similar to the ones recently returned to Indonesia with the poorly finished edges. It appears that during the finishing process the edges of the white material that the flag had been sewn on to were not tucked under when it was attcahed to the bear

-June-98 Britannia, Britannia where art though Britannia

Well June is upon us, and still Ty haven't managed to get Britannia's from Indonesia.

-July-98-She's back

I've today seen a Britannia Bear arriving from Ty with other beanies today in a London store. It just so happend that they were opening the box to put them on the shelve when i arrived-what luck!!!. But they were asking £500 for her, and placed her in a glass cabinet by the sales assistant. The rest of the beanies where instantly whisked away out of sight--obviously so they could remove any of the other popular/expensive ones. Get hunting, a small shipment of 6 Britannia Bears has been sent to all Ty shops that have requested her. Most stores again are saying that once the 6 have gone they won't be able to get anymore from Ty for another 6 to 8 weeks, taking up ino mid September.

Ty have said to the stores "We are just so overwelmed by the numbers of beanies being sold here in the UK that we just can't keep up. We are trying our hardest to keep up with orders, but we have fallen behind by 2 months all we can do is appologise to our collectors in the UK."

How much does Ty care about its collectors

I have e-mailed Ty 26 times in total and still have no reply what so ever. Does Ty really care about the reatailers naughtyness, no the don't. Providing they have a product that will stay popular with the public. They won't care what the retailers do. If retailers can buy Ty's for £1.50 and sell them for £4-£6 aren't they making enough profit as it is. The retailers have to take advantage and make you buy a ex amount of beanies to get the bear or the HTF you want.

Just watched TV and just by luck i saw beanies on a popular progamme called Short Change. They were trying to have a interview with one of the workers at Ty but they declined but instead they sent a fax saying:

We like to sell our beanies between £4-£6. If you spot retailers in your area not abiding by our rules report to us and we can get it sorted."

So we the collectors have to go and do Ty's work for them and they don't listen. We write to them they don't listen and we e-mail them and they don't listen. Where is this taking us nowhere.

Final question that comes to my mind is where do these e-mails go to. Becuse i'm not getting answers, nobody is. So where is Ty and where are their answers. I want them and i need them but as far as i see it i'm never going to get them.

March in North London's Brent Cross

Towards the beginning of this month we, as collectors of all TY Beanies were very badly let down by two stores that in the past we regularly purchased from.

On phoning these two stores up to three times a day we were not informed of the beanies imminent arrival. Infact we were told they were not getting any as yet.

Suddenly from one day to the next on phoning we were informed that the beanies arrival without prior notice and that they were all gone that, is the precious desired new bears which we are desperately waiting for to add to our collection.

Having missed out on these two deliveries we, are now waiting for the next one wondering if we will ever be lucky enough to obtain beanies from these two stores again at the right price. We know their deliveries are just around the corner. We think collecting has really caught on in the UK and, that stores are not able to cope with the demand of the general public consequently they only tell a limited number of people they have got them so, avoiding a stampede of very irate people. Something like a charge of the light brigade whom, are verbally abusive. Very rarely do you meet a sociable beanie purchaser in this corner of the woods.

Since then, I have obtained most of the new bears from a store called Toy Stack. The staff and very friendly and polite when you phone them they, will always let you know in advanced when they get their deliveries in and, when they will put them out. The only problem is that they spread their order over a week only putting out 4 of each style of the bears and the HTF's. I had to get up a 3am a cued for 7 hours but, it was well worth the wait as I can see it. For £4.99 each it's worth every penny.

Germania update -

I've had a pretty clear confirmation that Germania will only be released in Germany. This came from Ty in the UK via me phoning and, one of whom even gave it to me in writing. As usual with Ty things may change, but at the moment I don't foresee us being able to get hold of this bear easily in Britain, in fact with extreme difficulty. As Britannia appeared in Germany later than the UK maybe after a while we'll start getting Germania?? (just hoping!!). Pre-sales on ebay ect claiming sourcing from the UK should be treated with extreme caution.

E-mail me your Questions, comments and

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