Someone on eBay is asking like $150,000 for a stack of Disney VHS tapes. I doubt someone is going to pay that, but I could be very, very wrong. They’d probably have to pay just as much for a functioning VCR in 2026. The listing exists, and there have been screenshots of similar listings powering posts and articles for days about how there is a fortune sitting in your parents’ garage. Remember when Beanie Babies were going to fund our entire college education? Good times.

I love this genre, but I don’t trust it. For the Beanie Baby reason above, frankly, but also because anyone can type a number into an eBay listing. That’s an ask, not a sale, and certainly doesn’t equate to value. None of it is related. But I do find it kind of funny because you don’t need to go to business school to know value is truly what someone is willing to pay for something. It’s fairly arbitrary. And it’s kind of funny that something we had growing up is now a “valuable” asset. Yes, that VHS would be worth money now, you know, if my sister didn’t rip the actual tape out during a hissy fit.

So I’m dedicating this Obsessed & Distracted to this hilarious turn of events. There are plenty of 90s childhood gems that are worth money now, but I selected a few of my favorites, and let’s just say I’m totally buggin’.

What a collection says about people collecting

There is a piece in Dwell about how various collecting crazes have taken place across history, and one thing that stuck with me is how each one neatly maps to what the era was anxious about. Victorians were obsessed with fossils and seashells, right as natural sciences were becoming popular, even though no one was sure what any of it meant. Grown men once ate dinner inside a dinosaur cast in 1853. What the hell were they processing?

Stamps took over the midcentury, which tracks. Postage was cheap, and people were spread across continents writing to each other. Suddenly, a global order existed in a tiny square you could paste into a book. Postwar manufacturing figured out the real trick: make something, call it collectible, and people won’t just buy one - they will buy nine. G.I. Joes, Barbie, Beanie Babies, and Pokémon ran the same play over the last 40 years, and then came the Labubu.

The biggest collectible craze right now? Nostalgia. Cassettes, CDs, vinyl, and random ass stuff from 1997. As Dwell basically put it, we’re just a generation collecting proof that physical objects with purpose used to exist.

So what’s “worth” money now?

The Little Mermaid Burger King Cups

If you remember, Burger King made a set of Disney collector cups in 1994. Only The Little Mermaid barely made it out the door. The promotion was handed over to The Lion King instead, so most of the Ariel glasses never officially reached the public.
This is why they’re a sleeper hit today. You can find individual cups for between $70 to $100, while a complete boxed set of the Classic Collector Series can run you about $120.
An accidental limited edition created by a marketing department that changed its mind? I find that funnier than any deliberate scarcity play.

Baby All Gone

The doll that ate plastic cherries and then made them reappear. I don’t know why that was ever considered a feature. Basically, it’s a doll, a jar of cherries, and a baby bottle with disappearing milk. The jar of cherries smells like cherries, and cherries appear when you plunge the spoon in. *Fun!*
This one has varying prices. Some go for $90 while one loose doll from 1991 seems to have been practically given away at $16. Boxed dolls are where the real money comes. A boxed doll can run upwards of 260 dollars.
What do you mean the creepy doll my sister had that haunted my nightmares is worth paying nearly 100 dollars for?

The Original American Girls

This one is real. It’s also the only genuinely serious money on this list, and with good reason. Pre-Mattel Pleasant Company dolls that have a white cloth torso rather than the tan are the dolls collectors chase.
Samanatha, in her original box and full “Meet” accessories, can get you between $1,000 to $3,000. Super pristine versions have gone even higher. Molly has sold around $1,200.
The catch is that the “original box and full Meet accessories” do a huge amount of work. A loose doll with a haircut you gave her in 1994 can still get you a couple of hundred dollars on a good day.
As a girl who didn’t get to have a Samantha, I wouldn’t dare part with my original if I had one.

The Black Diamond Disney VHS Tapes

Hate to break it to everyone, but the Black Diamond tapes aren’t worth the thousands of dollars everyone is trying to say they are. A lot of places have fact-checked this. A surprisingly high amount have actually. Listings that have actually “sold” run between $3 and $25 a tape. Why?
Disney manufactured these by the millions. Despite the marketing ploy that we needed to get them before they went into the Disney Vault “forever,” the volume is still very large. The myth about these tapes dates back to an old article that saw someone asking $9,000 and reported it as a valuation. It’s just been passed around ever since.
The tapes are worth money, and, of course, sealed copies do better. But hey, if you’ve got a played-to-death Beauty and the Beast with a cracked case somewhere, you can still get a coffee from it.

Polly Pocket

Yes, someone out there is actively looking for everyone’s favorite choking hazard: Polly Pocket! Bluebird-era Polly Pockets are where completeness isn’t a nice bonus but is really the whole valuation. Loose compacts with a missing figurine can trade for tens of thousands of dollars. Sealed and complete sets clear several hundred. A Bowling Disco set was sold for over $410.
But wait, what about the 1995 Children’s Hospital variation? A complete set sold for $5,000 in 2023. I’m sorry, what?
Obviously, an original box roughly doubles the number, but who the hell kept the box? That wasn’t the point of a Polly Pocket. It was losing all the pieces in the car to never be seen again.

The Original Furby

The biggest claim about these nightmares straight from the depths of hell is that an original 1998 Furby is worth close to a grand. It’s not.
A standard first run sealed in its box is only worth $30 to $70. Out of the box, it’s worth even less. There are four-figure Furbys, but they are very specific variants like the Millennium Edition ($4,500). Variants you’d only remember if you owned one.
At the height of their popularity, my sister and I each got to pick out a Furby at the toy store. I couldn’t tell you why we wanted one, but when that demonic owl learned my name and wouldn’t stop talking after turning the lights out, I was absolutely done. And I wouldn’t pay a dime for one of these evil beings again.

The Actual Takeaway

Everyone knows collectibles are always worth more when it has a box. Something insane because who kept a cardboard box for no reason? The market rewards exactly one type of child: the one who never played with anything. They loved to keep Samantha in the packaging. They didn’t feed Baby All Gone a single cherry. That kid probably has $3,000 now and one boring ass childhood, while the rest of us have bald dolls and fully formed personalities. Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s a trade worth making again and again.

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