Pinchers the Lobster

Pinchers is one of the Original 9 Beanie Babies, and he stayed in production for more than four years, long enough to be found with every generation of tag.

He was also the first Beanie Baby to have his name misspelled on a swing tag. When he was first produced for sale in the UK, the tag read Punchers, so a Punchers tag marks the earliest UK production.

His red fabric is the same as the red Digger, style 4027, Grunt, style 4092, Snort, style 4002, and Tabasco, style 4002.

Tush tag mix-ups on Pinchers are documented with tags belonging to Chocolate, Mystic, Speedy and Waves.

Pinchers the Lobster was bag number 5 in McDonald's 1998 Teenie Beanie set, the Happy Meal miniature of one of the Original 9 Beanie Babies. The 1998 promotion was McDonald's second Teenie Beanie run, expanding the original ten-toy assortment from 1997 to 12 animals after the response to that first set. It ran for about four weeks, from May 22 through June 18, 1998, and McDonald's ordered 240 million toys total, 20 million of each character. That volume makes bag number 5 a common find today, and an unopened bag by itself does not make one valuable.