How Much Your Vintage Happy Meal Beanie Baby From McDonald's Might Be Worth Today

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While not every Mickey D's toy rollout was a success (maybe you remember the Happy Meal wristband recall that McDonald's wishes it could forget), there are several nostalgic 1990s Happy Meal toys that hold space in our heart. But perhaps none are more iconic than the Ty Teenie Beanies sold in Happy Meals from 1997 to 2000. If you've held onto a few of these millennial favorites, you might be disappointed to know that they don't fetch thousands of dollars like some of the original Beanie Babies. However, you might be able to snag up to $100 for a large lot of the plushies in their original packaging. In other words, one Teenie Beanie by itself is worth, at most, about $1.

In case you weren't around during the craze, Teenie Beanies are miniature versions of the popular Beanie Babies stuffed animals that everyone was collecting in the late '90s. McDonald's iconic collab with Beanie Babies proved to be a smart decision. Customers — sometimes adults even more than kids — were so eager to collect them that many locations were selling out of the toys, resulting in patrons driving several hours to other locations just to get their hands on one. In 1997, CNN reported on a story of frenzied customers tackling a Teenie Beanie delivery person at one restaurant, proving that the hype was real. Unfortunately for collectors, the massive quantity of Teenie Beanies given away during this time means that they aren't very rare and don't hold much value today.

The love and nostalgia people hold for Beanie Babies is likely why some are trying to sell their Teenie Beanies for thousands of dollars online. In particular, several sets of the rare International Bears — Erin from Ireland, Maple from Canada, Britannia from Great Britain, and Glory from the U.S. — are listed for $10,000 to $50,000. However, considering lots that include these bears (also in the original packaging) have sold for $10 or less, listing them for thousands of dollars is extremely overzealous. Additionally, while rare tag mistakes like misspellings or formatting issues may increase the value of regular Beanie Babies, tag errors on Teenie Beanies are more widespread and don't necessarily increase the value.

If you weren't able to hang on to any McDonald's Teenie Beanies, there are other vintage McDonald's toys could be worth more than you think. In fact, it's not just the vintage toys that you should consider selling. Among the highest selling McDonald's toys on eBay are the Cactus Plant Flea Market figures that were sold in a limited edition adult Happy Meal in 2022. The set consists of three nostalgic Mickey D's characters — the Hamburglar, Grimace, and Birdie — along with the addition of Cactus Buddy, a character based off designer Cynthia Lu's streetwear brand called "Cactus Plant Flea Market." The adult Happy Meals sold out in a matter of days, and sets of all four characters have sold for around $50 online.