You should always buy Ty Beanie Babies from reputable dealers or from sellers who you know how to contact. These dealers and sellers should also have many references and/or feedback from other people they have done business with.
Most counterfeit Beanie Babies are easy to spot if you know what to look for. If you don't know what to look for then you will probably have a hard time telling most counterfeit Beanie Babies from authentic Ty Beanie Babies.
Beanie Baby shows are a good place to check out expensive Beanie Babies. Try to handle them if you can. Get to know the feel of the fabric and their overall appearance.
Some counterfeits are excellent reproductions, but regardless of how good the counterfeits look, they usually have many mistakes. It is never just one mistake.
If you are buying expensive Beanie Babies, then you should educate yourself on the counterfeits or at least know where to find the information when you need it.
Here are two websites that have information on counterfeit Beanie Babies along with photographs of many of them:
About Beanies Counterfeit Information http://www.aboutbeanies.com/fakes/index.html
Ms. Janie's Beanies Counterfeit Page http://www.msjanie.com/fakes/fake_page.html
Your other option is to have the Beanie Baby authenticated which is inexpensive to do. You can get your Beanie Babies authenticated at these websites:
http://www.pbbags.com/
http://www.peggyg.com/
Most of the mistakes on the counterfeits can be found on the tags. Become familiar with the different generation hang tags and tush tags or know where to look to find this information.
You can find information and photographs of all the different generation hang tags Ty has produced here: http://www.aboutbeanies.com/tags.html
Below are 17 ways to determine if a Beanie Baby is counterfeit:
- Many of the counterfeits have spelling errors on the tags, but keep in mind that so do some of the authentic Ty Beanie Babies. So you usually have to look for other mistakes beside just this.
- Check the tag dates and the addresses to make sure they are correct. Many of the counterfeits have the wrong date on the tush tag.
- Compare the tags of the suspect Beanie Baby with the tags of another Ty - continued below ...