Brownie the Bear

Brownie was the bear that became Cubbie. He was one of two Beanie Babies released before the Original 9 were announced in 1993, introduced on 16 June 1993 as style 4010 and retired later the same year. He has no birthday and no poem.

The renaming means the body tells you nothing. A first generation Brownie and a first generation Cubbie are the same bear, and the only difference is the name printed on the swing tag. Without a swing tag that says Brownie, there is no way to tell one from the other, so a Brownie missing his swing tag is for practical purposes a Cubbie.

Brownie has been counterfeited. The authentic colour is a golden tan and the fake is a medium brown, with a darker nose. Counterfeit fabric is coarse and low in quality.

The tags settle most doubts. An authentic Brownie can only carry a first generation swing tag, and the counterfeits have been found with a second generation tag, which no genuine Brownie ever wore. Both swing and tush tags should say hand made in Korea, and some fakes say China. On the tush tag, a counterfeit prints two full stops after TY INC where a genuine tag has a full stop and a comma.