My wife just casually had one of the rarest Beanie Babies in storage. Generation 1 Zip the Cat. This would have bought me a couple hundred Pokemon card packs in 1998 when I used to sell Beanie Babies on eBay (I was in fifth grade).

This is worth a whopping $20 now.

She claims to have had Peanut the royal blue elephant and seeing this one makes me far less skeptical of that claim. For those not in the know, Peanut was basically the Babe Ruth rookie card of Beanie Baby collecting. $5,000+ in 98. Probably $50 now, haha.

And yes, I was a proud subscriber to Mary Beth's Beanie World.