When I was about 14-16yrs old Ty beanie babies were very popular and everyone seemed to be collecting them. With a collection of over 300 beanies I had lots of different one's but still plenty left to collect. Ty beanie babies are soft toys filled with beans, each one has its own unique name which is printed on a heart tag, which is normally located in the ear of the beanie baby. Each beanie baby also has its own date of birth and a little poem about the beanie itself, all this information is in the heart tag. When I was collecting beanies there were a lot of fake beanies about and you had to be extra careful when buying the beanies due to the number of fakes that were around. Being a collector, luckily I knew how to spot a fake, and some of them were very good. After a certain amount of time each beanie retired and often the older retired one's were harder to get hold of and they were worth a lot more than the most recent one's that had been introduced by Ty.

Chocolate is a moose and has the birth-date of 27th April 1993 and was later retired on 31st December 1994. Chocolate lies flat on his front and has 2 bright coloured antlers which sit behind his 2 small brown ears. The tag is inserted through his right ear and mine currently has a tag protector on it. When collecting these, it was important to keep the tags in pristine condition to ensure it didn't get damaged, creased or ripped. Chocolate is made form really soft material which looks lighter or darker depending on the way the material is brushed with a hand. He has beans in his body which fall into his feet. His head doesn't contain beans, but is stuffed firmly with soft padding. He has 2 gorgeous black eyes on the front of his head which are shiny and smooth. On the back of his body is a small brown tail which is padded slightly. His antlers are made from the same material as his body, but they are slightly padded but not too much as the antlers still flop about which is what makes this so cute.

The poem inside his tag says the following:

Liquorice, gum and peppermint candy
This moose always has these handy
There is one more thing he likes to eat
Can you guess his favourite sweet?

I didn't buy this beanie for any particular reason than to add to my collection, as I would always buy any beanies that I didn't have. I love the brightly coloured antlers on the soft chocolate body to the Moose. This is a really cute beanie and although I have now had it over 10 years it has kept very well in a box amongest my other beanies. There has been no fading or damage to the fabric or the tag itself and it looks as good as new.


(review may also appear on dooyoo)