Bearbricks

Hmmm. So my Tamagotchi interest has taken a backseat. I have decided that my current second attempt at raising my devilgotchi will be my last. Funny how my interest in things change drastically from week to week.

My new curiosity of the moment are Bearbricks. What are Bearbricks you ask? See the photo from 6/27/04 posted below. As cute as they are, the thought of starting a collection is quite a headache. Currently, I only have one from Series 6.

Bearbrick began in 2001. They are manufactured by Medicom, the same company who makes Kubricks which are those Lego-looking figures (see Batgirl next to Horror bear). Bearbricks are normally released in series. Series 8 was just released June 2004. Each series consists of ten bears with designs that fall in the following categories: Basic, Flag, Jellybean, Pattern, Animal, Cute, Sci-Fi, Horror and Artist.

The bears are sealed in foil and boxed so you don't know which bear you will get when you buy them, just like baseball cards. Each bear design has a hit ratio. My Horror bear has an average hit percentage of 14.8%. The Artist bears are harder to hit usually 1:24 or 1:96.

The headache part comes from the fact that each series will also have a couple of hidden/secret design bears or better known as "chaser" figures. These can be worth a lot of money because the probability of scoring these are very slim. Thanks to eBay, you can purchase a lot of these rare figures. Medicom also does special tradeshows and the tradeshows also have exclusive release bears.

This whole Bearbrick thing may be played out in Japan already but it seems the US is just starting to get into these underground designer toys. Mirabeau and I saw some of these designer toys when we were in New York last year but didn't have any idea what they were. Just thought they were cool overpriced toys. Bearbrick figures are about $5-$7 each so they are somewhat affordable except when you start looking on eBay for those special rare ones to complete your collection.