Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 18, 2022

Did the USA really have smaller paper bags back in the 90s so the kids could help with the groceries|?

Better check your files, Mike—ID theft is very prevalent!!

I don’t know what kind of protection there was when this strip first came out.

Isn’t Alex too high in the IQ to be playing with “Beanie Babies”??

Only in America!

I remember this story arc.

I have several hundred that are worthless that you can have.

The thieves knew just what to take. The Beanie Babies are worth a fortune. PC’s and TV’s are just junk to a thief.

A great story arc is coming and and I believe an encounter for the first time between two long time characters.

My sister during this time acquired 2-3 boxes of Beanie Babies and helped our daughter sell them to pay for college. Seriously! We had people coming over and buying some for over $100.

Targeted break-in. Sounds like an inside job.

But the 1951 Mickey Mantle card is intact.But Alex doesn’t know it’s valuable.

In my truckdriving days, I made a few deliveries to Ty, Inc.; you were escorted the whole time, from door to dock, while off-loading, and back out, by a visibly armed security dude. Only place I ever saw tighter security was Pampered Chef (and I’ve been to the White House…….).

Whew! For a moment there, I thought you were about to say Beanie-Weenies!!!

Tragic. Truly tragic. Some poor zhlub went through all the trouble to rob Mikes house and all he, or she, got were beanie babies. Not even a cabbage patch kid class misdemeanor. Basically, they just took out the trash.

Roundup the usual suspects.

Silly Crazes still happen, although the 2008 crash changed the collectable market forever. Seems todays under 40 crowd isn’t into collecting "*Stuff* like Boomers do. All sorts of stuff went from collectable to donate in a blink, check what happened to Glassware/China a 12 place Noritake China set from a $1,000 to donate. Seems 30-year olds don’t do sit down dinner parties anymore. Good thing Firearms & Edge Weapons recovered well and keep going up in value, wonder why?

Doonesbury is one of those comics I’ve loved at every stage of my life, from like 8 years old in 1980 to now, and it just ages finer every year.

In Chicago at the height of this “craze” the Cubs had a few days of beanie babies give a ways. They limited these to I think the first 10,000 fans, some of whom staged friends or family in line so they could purchase the maximum tickets to collect the babies and come out of the park and go back in to collect more. Amazingly the cheap seats were not available until after the babies were gone! The babies were on sale on eBay before the Cubs were done giving them out.

The White Sox on the other hand had a marketing “genius” that jumped on the trend a little late and thought that giving away 40,000 would sell out the park. Of course they did not sell out, they had MANY babies left and no eBay market ever developed.

Supply and demand requires a semblance of balance.

Nowadays, they break in and leave some Beanie Babies.

Those Beanie Babies would be worth about $5 today.

comic cop with no life strikes again.