Princess the Bear (PVC Pellets, China, No Space)

Princess made in China with the no-space swing tag and a P.V.C.-filled tush tag is usually the version pointed to as the first Princess of all, and it is also the most common. It sells regularly for well under $50, in a recorded range of $10 to $90 with a median around $47.

No-space refers to the last four lines of text on the tag's right inside panel, printed running together rather than with the later line break. Ty used this tag for the first production run in China and for some of the initial Indonesia run as well, so the no-space tag alone does not prove which country made the bear. The P.V.C. tush tag is what places this one in the earliest wave, before Ty's factories switched to P.E. pellets.

Princess is one of the most misrepresented Beanie Babies on the secondary market, and this exact version, the plain China no-space, is the one sellers most often list as rare. It is not. Ty produced it in numbers large enough that it turns up on eBay constantly, and the price reflects that.

It is also the version counterfeiters copy most closely, down to the same made-in-China no-space swing tag and P.V.C. tush tag. The fabric is one tell: an authentic Princess feels smooth against the nap, while counterfeits run rougher and sometimes closer to flannel. The embroidered rose is another, since a counterfeit's stem tends to run wider than the narrow, sage-green stem on the real thing, and the neck ribbon should be finished on both sides rather than just one.