Launched by H. Ty Warner in 1993, Beanie Babies emerged as one of the hottest collectibles for kids and grown-ups alike. Seeing the need for a toy "in the $5 range that wasn't real garbage," Warner designed a whole series of small, understuffed, polyester plush toys filled with polyvinyl chloride pellets. Bypassing any kind. of advertising campaign and refusing to court the big toy retailing giants such as Toys-R-Us, Warner instead shipped Beanie Babies to smaller retailers. What really pushed the toys, such as "Flitter the Butterfly" or "Cheeks the Baboon," was that no one store carried the entire collection. Add to that Warner's "retiring"*of certain toys after a short period of time on the market and the quest for the complete line of Beanie Babies became something akin to a treasure hunt, with anxious collectors storming stores, advertising on the Internet, and stalking conventions...