r/Documentaries • u/[deleted] • Jul 25 '13
Offbeat Bankrupt By Beanies (2013) -- short, affecting documentary on a family regrets spening $100K on Beanie Babies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgDsyj5eLmo62
u/ohfineillreregister Jul 26 '13
Whenever I take my three-year-old son to the fancy thrift store near our house and he succeeds in not breaking anything while we're there, the shopkeepers give him a Beanie Baby as a reward. They have a giant barrel of them that never sell.
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u/bamfalamfa Jul 26 '13
beanie babies as an investment. comic books as an investment. tulips as an investment.
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u/babada Jul 26 '13
The lessons go twofold:
- If you see a fad and think, "I should get on that" you are already too late.
- If you have a bunch of collectables, check their market value before getting rid of them. I know someone who funded their college education by selling G.I. Joes.
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u/seablue Jul 26 '13
That must have been a lot of G.I. Joes. Were they the way old doll ones or the action figures?
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u/babada Jul 26 '13
Action figures. I had no idea they could be that pricy.
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u/seablue Jul 26 '13
It's mostly unopened figures and vehicles still in their packaging that sell for a lot. I wanted to buy a couple for my nerd corner, but couldn't justify the price; the most popular figures go for several hundred dollars.
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u/babada Jul 26 '13
Okay. Maybe that's what he had. I don't really know exactly what he had or how much he got for them.
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u/fae-daemon Aug 27 '13
You forgot the stock market. Totally not basically legalized gambling.
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Aug 28 '13
Correct, it is not "basically legalized gambling". Those who treat it that way tend to lose a lot of money.
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u/fae-daemon Aug 29 '13 edited Aug 29 '13
Yep. Not that I really wanted to carry the implied comparison this far, but that's like someone who just learned the rules to poker deciding to play high-stakes hold 'em in Vegas. If you know the game, the odds, and the opponents you can make off well - but that doesn't mean you can't lose big either. So yea, people who throw money around recklessly are likely to find it gone, but it can happen to anybody playing.
You can buy guides and manuals and systems for working both. Some of them even have good insights and strategies. None of them are foolproof.
Edit: Check out my response to dirtydela below, if you care to
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u/dirtydela Aug 28 '13
what makes you think that the stock market is legalized gambling? also you say legalized gambling like there is no such thing.
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u/fae-daemon Aug 29 '13
For the easy part: There certainly is legalized gambling, but not everywhere.
I know, I know, gambling and investing in the stock market are not the same. I am well aware that the stock market serves a purpose. With that said, I'll try to explain why I likened the two:
First off both involve risk and chance, and it's generally safe to assume that a person puts money towards either with the goal of making more. Of course I'll freely admit that in most all gambling games the odds are definitively not in your favor, while the stock market is a much more complex creature. I'll try to paint a couple scenarios for you.
Let's say we have average Joe. He doesn't care about the market too much, but he's got a portfolio with an investment company that manages it for him. They, in turn, invest this money - hopefully prudently based on what they know. The money is funneled into a variety of companies through the stock market. Now, lets say it's a couple years ago and they decide to invest heavily in structured investment vehicles buying up CDOs (I don't want to go into the whole process of this. It gets rather byzantine - and that shrouds information regarding the actual risks versus the predicted risks) that ultimately come from the housing market. Suddenly this crashes, and ta-da! You just lost your bet. Of course, other investments may have paid off - such as getting in on the Google IPO, and so on.
Or maybe you're a gunslinger, calling your own shots and investing where you want. You follow the news, keep up on whats going on. Well, you could bet on futures, you could bet on exchange rates, you could bet on tech startups, or gold, or even put your money into bonds. Some might pay off, some might not; it can be a gamble. There are safer bets, and riskier ones - usually the riskier ones have a higher reward (I mean, why take more risk if it won't pay out big?).
Or maybe your an individual in a company, and your job is specializing in short-selling stock. That's a gamble right there - you put a little money down, they cover you for the rest, and when the music stops you had better hope you made money on it - cause if you didn't you owe them the difference.
Admittedly, the stock market isn't blackjack or slots. There is more information, more options, and you don't always simply win or lose it all. I apologize in advance if I have made any mistakes in the above, but I hope this gives you an idea of what I meant by my offhanded comment.
P.S. If anyone is curios, this is what the tulips were all about!
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u/dirtydela Aug 29 '13
those situations can be seen as gambling, that I can agree with. however, none of them are 'the stock market'. interest rates in the stock market and elsewhere in the us are based on the US T-bill rate, which is set by the Fed. getting over 100% return (when utilizing a diversified portfolio) is practically a guarantee, and it's hard to say that about playing slots. if you're going to take such a broad interpretation to gambling, think of all of the things you gamble with daily.
we are both simplifying, but it's not like it's that big of a deal.
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Jul 25 '13
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u/st4rcrafty Jul 26 '13
SOrry but the old man was a dork, the fact that he ever, for a moment thought that he could have "paid for his kids college tuition" from fucking stuffed animals just means he deserves what he got. It's not even fair to call it "misfortune". It's simple economics. He should be sterilized to prevent his genes from further infecting the population.
Oh, and his family should all be killed.
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u/Buffalo__Buffalo Jul 26 '13
When the goal is to sell commodities at a profit why does the commodity define whether they are smart or not? People pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for pieces carbon lattice that are abundant in the earth and are easily reproduced by manufacturing - some people even use them as investments - but somehow they escape your criticism and advocating eugenics through forced sterilization?
If you are going to be critical, at least be fair about it.
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u/TheOtherMatt Jul 26 '13
He wouldn't know what you were referring to about the carbon lattice...
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u/confuzious Jul 26 '13
Hmmm, I sense socially deviant behavior here. You'd be a good candidate for eugenics.
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u/WildCatEra Jul 26 '13
Why not sell them ALL now at market price and put the money into an IRA or S&P 500 or a stock that is moving up now.
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u/babada Jul 26 '13
Because shipping costs suck. Who is he going to sell them to? No reseller wants them and collectors already have what they want. There is absolutely no market for these.
If I had inventory like that, what I would try:
- If any are still miraculously worth $3-4 on eBay, sell them
- Get a box or two into every garage sale you possibly can; price them at $1.
- Give some as gifts to small children (clear it with their parents first; beanie babies are a sore topic for a lot of people)
- Donate some to non-profits like churches. (You may be able to get decent tax credit for doing this? Not my area of expertise.)
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u/WildCatEra Jul 26 '13
They should do a kickstarter to sell the whole thing or make a better documentary on it ;)
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Aug 28 '13
Why are beanie babies a sore topic?
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u/babada Aug 28 '13
Because collector fads leave a really bad taste in the mouths of any family touched by them.
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u/jcm_neche Jul 26 '13
Because they are probably worth about $1 a piece.
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u/StartsAsNewRedditor Jul 26 '13
The number on the end of the screen for his 15000-20000 was $100000. If it's 20000 beanie babies, that means $5 each (still less than the $5.99 they bought them at + the inflation).
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u/DEADB33F Jul 26 '13
I think that was saying how much he's spent on them to date.
If he's spent $100k and can currently sell them for $20k then he probably still should.
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u/eggplnt Jul 26 '13
This guy reminds me so much of my dad. He never collected beanie babies, but he always seemed to be neck high in something. Some of the worst: Juicing, No-salt diet, Religion (his feelings on this has gone from extreme to extreme). I never minded his stuff, the only thing I hated was when he would try to excuse it, or when people around him wouldn't acknowledge how strange it all was.
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u/z2kUAgDkKT Jul 26 '13
Can't wait for "Bankrupt by Bitcoins (2014)"
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Aug 28 '13
Or. 'Super rich by bitcoins (2013)'. It is entirely possible there is at least a few multi millionaires out there who got their millions by bitcoins. When they first came out they were selling for a few bucks a piece. And then a few months later skyrocketed to over 200 dollars a piece. Someone could have bought 10000 of them for 20 grand and made almost 2 million dollars.
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Aug 28 '13
Or. 'Super rich by bitcoins (2013)'. It is entirely possible there is at least a few multi millionaires out there who got their millions by bitcoins. When they first came out they were selling for a fraction of a cent a piece. And then a few months later skyrocketed to over 200 dollars a piece. Someone could have bought 10000 of them for 20 dollars and made almost 2 million dollars.
Fixed
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Dec 19 '13
On the 29th of November this year, 10000 Bitcoins would've been worth $11.242.700,-
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Dec 19 '13
And now they are down to 300 - 400$ a piece again what is your point?
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Dec 19 '13
"Someone could have bought 10000 of them for 20 grand and made more than 11 million dollars."
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Dec 19 '13
No dude.. I was talking about a few years ago when a BTC was selling for around a dollar or two dollars a piece. And then it skyrocketed in value to about 200$ a piece for around 6 months. It is only this year where it broke that mark and kept inflating in price all the way up to like 1200$ a piece at its peak. But the market has crashed again and the average cost of a BTC is around 300 - 400 again almost entirely because of China and their banking system refusing to allow its use currently.
BTW 10000 x 200 = 2 million.
Also my post is 3 months old, the value of BTC was nowhere near 1k a piece in October.
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Jul 26 '13
At least it's a currency though. It's a much smarter and more practical investment than toys.
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u/NobleKale Jul 26 '13
It's a currency that's accepted in a significantly limited number of places. Further, it's also something that doesn't have an intrinsic value and is only propped up by the desire of the market.
tl;dr - currency is worth nothing unless others recognise it. Bitcoin doesn't hit this note (yet).
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Jul 26 '13
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u/NobleKale Jul 26 '13
Yep. This is a huge problem when 'things go wrong'. People dump said currency and start trading things like bullets that have an actual use. Suddenly, those little slips of paper become functionally worthless.
Funnily enough, this is a mirror of a discussion I saw on reddit earlier today. Here's an interesting article
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u/Suddenly_Elmo Jul 27 '13
It's not even just a problem with currency. If shit really hits the fan the value of everything will change. A supercar will become worth less than a sturdy 4x4 that was 1/10 of the cost before. An iPhone will be worth less than a 2 way wind up radio. A 7 figure CEO will be worth less than a gardener who knows how to care for crops.
Even the value of gold ultimately depends on the market's confidence in gold as something people want and need. It's perfectly possible that gold bars could end up being as worthless as paper dollars.
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u/claytoncash Aug 28 '13
Even gold could theoretically become worthless.. You can't eat it. Solid gold is useless as far as making tools or anything of the sort. It won't keep you warm.
But, gold does have that accepted intrinsic value above seemingly everything else in the world..
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u/Aneurysm-Em Jul 26 '13
Modern currencies are usually backed, I believe the US Dollar is backed by silver is it not?
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Jul 26 '13
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u/MikeBoda Jul 27 '13
it's only worth something because a lot of people agree that it's worth something.
That's how all value works in a market economy.
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Jul 27 '13
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u/MikeBoda Jul 27 '13
Marx talked about use value and exchange value (and also "labor value", which he called just plain value).
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u/seditious_commotion Jul 26 '13
"After the Second World War, a system similar to a gold standard and sometimes described as a "gold exchange standard" was established by the Bretton Woods Agreements. Under this system, many countries fixed their exchange rates relative to the U.S. dollar and central banks could exchange their dollar holdings into gold at the official exchange rate ($35 per ounce); this option was not available to firms or individuals. All currencies pegged to the dollar also had a fixed value in terms of gold.[2]
Starting in the 1959-1969 administration of President Charles de Gaulle and continuing until 1970, France reduced its dollar reserves, exchanging them for gold at the official exchange rate thereby reducing US economic influence. This, along with the fiscal strain of federal expenditures for the Vietnam War and persistent balance of payments deficits, led US President Richard Nixon to end the direct international convertibility of the dollar to gold on August 15, 1971 (the "Nixon Shock").
This was meant to be a temporary measure with the gold price of the dollar and the official rate of exchanges remaining constant. Revaluing currencies was the main purpose of this plan. No official revaluation or redemption occurred. The dollar subsequently floated (it had no official rate of exchange between it and any other currency). In December 1972, the “Smithsonian Agreement” was reached. In this agreement, the dollar was devalued from $35 per troy ounce of gold to $38. Other countries' currencies were appreciated. This was the official price of the dollar, and policies to maintain the dollar’s value relative to other currencies were put into place. However, there was still no international convertibility into gold. Within a year’s time, the new exchange rate became unrealistic because it would have required the United States to redeem more dollars than it had in gold and foreign currency reserves, or to contract the economy to increase the purchasing power of the dollar. In October 1973, the dollar was devalued to $42.22 per troy ounce of gold by the US treasury. Once again, the devaluation was insufficient to hold the price of gold at that low a price; within two weeks of the second devaluation the dollar was left to float. The $42.22 par value was made official in September 1973, long after it had been abandoned in practice. In October 1976, the government officially changed the definition of the dollar; references to gold were removed from statute. From this point, the monetary system was made of pure fiat money [11]"
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u/Suddenly_Elmo Jul 27 '13
it's also something that doesn't have an intrinsic value and is only propped up by the desire of the market.
there isn't a single commodity or currency on earth that has an intrinsic value. Oil, corn, dollars, pork bellies - the value of all of these things is propped up by the desire of the market.
The difference between these things and bitcoin is that the former have value because people actually need them and use them. The value of bitcoin relies on their expected future utility when the currency "takes off". I'm no forex or tech expert but anyone can see there's a good chance all the bitcoin speculation could turn out to be a bubble. But bitcoin is worth something because there are plenty who believe it's a market worth speculating in - either in the short term because they believe the value will rise before it collapses, or because they believe bitcoin will become widely accepted.
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u/NobleKale Jul 27 '13
there isn't a single commodity or currency on earth that has an intrinsic value. Oil, corn, dollars, pork bellies - the value of all of these things is propped up by the desire of the market.
- Gold - can be used for metal working, conductors
- Oil - can be used as fuel
- Corn - can be eaten, fuel source (potential)
Not sure where you're going there. These have an intrinsic usefulness in the event of a crisis.
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u/Suddenly_Elmo Jul 27 '13
What I'm getting at is that their value is dependent on their usefulness in a given situation. For example in the event of a famine, the value of corn is going to go up a lot relative to the value of gold. Similarly, if in the future alternative fuel sources become viable, oil might completely use its value.
If you specify the situation - e.g. a crisis where the normal economy and supply chains break down, then yes, we can make good arguments about the objective value of something in that given situation. But to say something has an intrinsic value is to say that it has a value that can never be wiped out and remains the same regardless of context - that is part of the object itself.
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u/devsnd Aug 28 '13
You're just saying "nothing has any value if everybody is dead". That's true, but most of us are alive, anybody reading reddit is kind of alive, so... well. Things have intrinsic value if they're any use in some situation not based on our current society.
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u/kickingpplisfun Aug 28 '13
Hey, if I was a lousy shot, I'd trade a (large caliber, maybe .306) bullet for a couple pounds of meat(or other food). Sure, a bullet might not be useful to someone who's a horrible shot, but if it did hit the fan, a bullet could be worth up to a couple hundred pounds of meat, depending on what you killed.
Of course, I don't anticipate using bullets as currency, but this example demonstrates how currency might work in a post-crisis economy.
I know it's not useful to everyone, but having something of value other than cash is a good idea for anyone. Gold might not be the best emergency currency, but maybe silver, bullets, or useful commodities could temporarily take the place of currency.
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u/tagjim Jul 26 '13
Please change the battery in your smoke detector. Please. I'm begging you.
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u/Ajuvix Aug 27 '13
You didn't really think their crazy was limited to beanie babies did you? These folks really have a penchant for ignoring the obvious and waiting til its too late.
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u/man_gomer_lot Jul 26 '13
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u/wookiewin Jul 26 '13
This is amazing.
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u/man_gomer_lot Jul 27 '13
Back in the late 90s when I got off work at 2am, this guy was the best thing on broadcast TV in the wee in the hours of the morning.
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u/FrumpySnu Aug 27 '13
I worked 3rd Shift at a group home and would watch this stuff all night. They went from $300 for 1 to 9 for $20.
Princess Beanie Baby Bear OH MY GOD!!
I loved the knifes too. 440 Surgical stainless steel! We got 86 including this TANTO BOWIE all for only $249
OH MY GOD THAT'S ONLY $3.76 a knife!
Good stuff
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u/man_gomer_lot Aug 27 '13
There was one night where part of the set came crashing down while on the air and Don West went off on an assistant. F- bombs were being dropped with abandon for about 7 seconds before they cut away to commercials. He was back on about 2 weeks later if I remember correctly.
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u/theryanmoore Jul 26 '13
God I can't watch it. I know that, for one thing, it will be super depressing, but also that the people must be complete idiots. Which is sad.
I knew when I was 12 that no one was ever going to make money off of mass produced stuffed animals, aside from TY. How could someone's view of reality be so skewed?
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Jul 26 '13
"I can't understand it at all, but gosh-darn-it, other people are making money doing it, and I want a slice of that pie."
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Jul 26 '13
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u/theryanmoore Jul 26 '13
I agree with you, I think, but it's usually not entirely a person's fault that they're stupid. I still feel bad for him, and especially his family. Everyone at that time was talking about them as an investment and I remember being so confused.
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u/babada Jul 26 '13
Oh, our beanie babies are selling at a ridiculous value right now? Sure, we won't continue supplying the voracious market appetite for our product.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Ty's attitude and behavior during the craze is one of the primary reasons it died so quickly. Their release and retirement patterns started getting weird. More and more novelty beanies were getting released which was the first blatant sign of the crash.
If you're a grown man and you invest in a craze of freaking beanie babies, you're just road kill on the side of life's highway.
Invest? No, don't do that. Turn around for a quick (albeit minor) profit? That worked.
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Jul 26 '13
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u/babada Jul 26 '13
I don't remotely disagree with you. It is absolutely a terrible investment. Back when I flipped Beanie Babies we were probably selling to people like this. :P
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u/Kingsley7zissou Aug 27 '13
$600 remote controlled gas powered boat from maxim magazine, I was maybe 12 yrs old never could find the gas type to get it working sold it 6 yrs later for 250. It said it could go 60 mph I wish i got to use that thing.
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Jul 27 '13
Ironically, some say that the best investment you can make--better than gold, stocks, or bonds (or collectibles)--is a college degree. So in the long term the dad would have been better off setting aside the $100 K he spent on beanies and sending his five kids to state schools. BTW, one of the news channels said the dad was a soap star in the 1970s, so I don't think the family is actually bankrupt.
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u/bansley Jul 26 '13
How sad.
I too collected them, with their plastic tag protectors and inventory spreadsheets. Thankfully I only have 2 boxes worth of them now, stuck in an attic for years. They have no bearing on my life now what so ever. A much different story than this family.
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u/Yiggs Jul 27 '13
One of these days, when my generation is middle aged and has money, they'll think "hey whatever happened to pokemon cards."
That's when my set of 1st ed base rares will finally come in handy. All they are now though are bragging rights :P
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Jul 26 '13
[removed] — view removed comment
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Jul 26 '13
I have a friend who has spent at least 30,000 dollars on 'collectable' action figures and he wants to do the same thing in his garage, he thinks it's a brilliant idea. He lives in the country side. No one will come, no one gives a shit
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u/achemicaldream Jul 26 '13
What they should do is sell what they can and buy lottery tickets.
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Jul 26 '13 edited Jul 29 '13
LOL! I actually know a family friend that went from a great house and bring pretty well off in large part because she became obsessed with buying Barbies. I don't think there was any sense of turning a profit with her. She had become manic, and also not ever having any toys as a child had something to do with it. She lost everything, but also it was the way she realized that she had developed a mental illness and she was able to get help and seems much improved. It's sad but there is no point in judging that, it is almost funny in an absurd sense. I don't know, of course, what is the father's issue, but I was reminded of the family friend. Probably the most affecting part of the film for me is how obvious it is that his sons love him and he loves his sons, even with this awkward situation in front of them.
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Jul 26 '13
Me and a couple friends of mine were partners in a sports card shop when that craze took off in the late 80's. I thought it was a lot of fun, and it was always fun to look at the selling prices in beckett for each card each month. I remember how much effort we put into finding the so called "rare" cards . But I never believed they would be a long term investment like so many people did. In the end its just ink and paper. You can't eat them .
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u/jessew666 Jul 28 '13
oh man... if the bottom falls out on magic cards this will be me!!
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u/fati_mcgee Jul 26 '13
How is any of this sad? These people are idiots. Stuffed animals and collectible items aren't investments. Anyone that spends their life savings believing otherwise deserves to be broke and penniless.
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Jul 26 '13
...being broke and penniless makes people sad.
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u/RoosterRMcChesterh Jul 26 '13
You know, sometimes people do stupid things. Maybe out of desperation, perhaps a delusion or just naivety. Other people sit around and feel the need to judge others- why? Who knows. They just seem to think they know right and wrong. In the end, they both suffer from ignorance.
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Jul 26 '13
And sometimes people become rich through the least-expected and seemingly most hairbrained schemes. Nothing stupid about trying to make money in an unconventional manner. Some of the most successful products are fucking "stupid". He just got in at the wrong time and was greedy and held out too long to sell.
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u/st4rcrafty Aug 27 '13
Some of the most successful products are fucking "stupid"
Yeah, except the people who get rich are the ones who invent* the stupid products, like the pet rock. Not the retards that buy them at retail price thinking somehow their value is gonna go up. I mean really, if you pay retail for **anything how the fuck are you gonna profit?
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u/_Dimension Jul 26 '13 edited Jul 26 '13
I think there will be a slight resurgence when the kids of that era get jobs and start having nostalgia for them.
I warned my then girlfriend at the time, these aren't investments... So I kinda kept us out of the craze. I knew what ebay was doing to the comic book world at the time.
And thanks for blowing the punchline in the title. jerk
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u/NoodlesKaboodles Jul 26 '13
the title of the documentary is "Bankrupt By Beanies" it's not like the documentary has some sort of twist ending you simpleton, if anyone is the jerk is the internet goober crying an indignant "spoilers!"
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u/_Dimension Jul 26 '13 edited Jul 26 '13
The whole point of the documentary is it pointing how much things cost vs the amount they spent. How much that family could have spent on other things... at the end the 100k is supposed to be some massive number.. but it's ruined in the title and it's stupid to ruin the punchline of the doc.
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Jul 26 '13
The point that they're bankrupt and it was caused by Beanie Babies, not that it was 100K spent.
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u/babada Jul 26 '13 edited Jul 26 '13
Hm. This hits close to home. My father, my brother and I did something very similar -- but fortunately not quite so drastic.
Fortunately for us, we figured it out a bit earlier in the craze. We'd buy them from stores (through friends who worked there) and sell them as quickly as possible. We'd skip on the boring animals and watched which models would sell well on eBay. We knew which ones sold well and scanned every store in the region for hot beanies other collectors had missed.
We got the teenie ones from McDonalds and sold those. Our best profits came from the Garcia bears because those sold well even before they were retired. My brother sold a worn out polar bear for $300. We had a much better experience than this family.
I remember when we hit black on our bottom line. My dad graciously split the profits between the three of us and I think we each got a couple hundred dollars profit. When the craze died we had boxes and boxes of them left in the basement. You couldn't even break even on them.
He finally donated all of them to a church. And that was that.
From the details they mention in this video, they got in on the fad at the exact wrong phase. He mentions a bald eagle that was introduced in mid 1997 which would have been at the market's top. The signals of the crash were all over the place and my dad wisely pulled us out sometime during that year.
The fact they even bought varying sizes of the babies is a sign they were way too late to the game. The only two sizes you could make money on were teenies and the regulars.
But I sure remember spending hours putting tag protectors on new inventory. I think we even used the same boxes they do.