Hello everyone! Welcome back! This week we are doing something a little bit silly before diving into a new year with new auctions. If you have kids, grandkids, nieces, nephews, etc. you may know all about the Squishmallow craze that erupted during lockdown and continues to persist to this day with numerous collaborations and their extremely soft bodies.
For those of you who don’t know, Squishmallows are egg shaped stuffed animals resembling aquatic, fuzzy, and fantasy animals and characters that each have their own names and personalities created by Kellytoys. Think simplified Beanie Babies with softer fillings in multiple sizes – and that should tell you a lot about the reason for collecting them! Much like Beanie babies, special patterns and colors are released for holidays and different seasons, with some characters having multiple variations.
The easiest example to view these variations is to look at their collaboration with Sanrio! Not only do they have the original Hello Kitty and friends, but they have released ones that appear as cupcakes and racecar drivers! If you still don’t know Sanrio, that’s okay because they collaborated with Godzilla so you can get yourself a cute little Mothra or a metallic Mecha Godzilla to soften up your collection! Their biggest, and possibly most popular collaboration, is with Pokémon and the Pokémon Center releasing five characters total. The first run included Pikachu and Gengar with Pikachu having subsequent variations of open eyes, winking, and even a Santa hat for the holidays. The next run included Togepi and Snorlax (who is my favorite and I’m still looking for a 20”), with the third releasing Piplup. Arguably the Disney collaborations were just as popular, however the Pokémon were sold out in minutes upon release, with secondhand sellers offering them for double to triple the retail price.
I personally do have a collection of Squishmallows, not as big as some people, that I have dubbed as my aquarium. Each one in my collection is a sea creature, apart from Bruce the Walrus, Mitch the platypus, and Hanna the Hippo. They all count though because they go in water too! Are any of mine rare? Not likely, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t rare or hard to find friends out there. Jack the black cat is probably the hardest to find, only 500 were made and sold exclusively through Kellytoys. Some completed listings on eBay have this cat selling for over $400 and as high as $1000.
Does all this mean your kids are sitting on potential goldmines? Most likely not, Squishmallows are just another collectible stuffed animal with cute faces and squishable exteriors. Will I stop buying them because they really aren’t worth anything? Of course not! Everyone needs a little joy in life, we collect things because we like them, not because we think it will help us retire early.
