As I mentioned in an earlier article, Beanie Babies; the creation of the Ty Company of Oakbrook, Illinois, is a small understuffed bean bag plush little animal, fish, bird, insect or dinosaur. The only little critter which was not an animal of some sort was the Ghost.

I have no idea why Mr. Warner decided to introduce a Ghost, but I believe it was to increase sales during the Halloween sales period. Richard, owner of The Cat's Meow in Glenview, Illinois told me it was because of Casper, the Friendly Ghost. The little white Ghost was introduced in September, 1995. The current Spooky wears a fourth generation TY tag with the poem and birth date of 10/31/95, which we all know is Halloween.

All of you are wondering where Spook comes into this. Once again, this at best is an educated guess and my theory. The TY Catalog calls this little white guy Spooky and all the current Beanies are tagged Spooky! Obviously an error was made very early in his production resulting in Spook. I have only seen Spook with the white with black ink sewn-in body tag. This material tag is located on Spook's side. Also, with the third generation paper TY Tag (without the poem and birth date). In November of 1997, SPOOK is selling on the secondary market for $225.00-$300.00 price range!!!

I have never seen a Spooky with a white with black sewn-in body tag. Every Spooky I have ever seen has the later white with red ink sewn-in body tag. The Spooky body tags are all located on the bottom where his feet would be if he was not a ghost.

Based on this fun fact, it is my best guess that when Spooky was introduced, he was produced in error as Spook. This was immediately corrected and changed to Spooky. This reminds me of the error on Tusk who prior to his retirement on January 1, 1997, he was wearing a Tuck tag the later months in 1996!

All Spook and Spooky are style #4090. Some of the TY tags on both Spook and Spooky also have "Designed by Jenna Boldebuck" under his name and style number. I have not seen the designers name on the fourth generation TY tags. I do not believe this to be a significant variation or style change but just an interesting fun fact!

I receive many E-mails and calls about differences with the mouth of this cute little critter. Some have the black thread with a slight smile, a U smile, a V smile, and often times the black thread is missing. The little red glued on felt mouth often times moves around on his face or falls off completely! This is similar to the original Lucky the Ladybug with her 7 glued on felt black dots.

I was predicting Spooky would be retired but he is still around at this time!

Garcia says "Click on one of us beanies to E-mail Beanie Phenomenon!" We welcome your comments , although regretfully, we cannot answer all Questions sent in.