Plush Toys
Buy and sell plush toys in Costa Rica.
A Stitch won at a school fair, a row of Squishmallows off a teenager’s bed and a sloth carried home from a gift shop in La Fortuna can all end up here, new and pre-owned. Plush rarely wears out before it is outgrown, so most of it is passed on clean and whole, and the questions worth asking are short ones: has it been washed, are the tags still on, and how big is it out of the photo. Bears, sloths and other animal shapes have their own page one level down.
Character plush and the collectible lines:
most of the value in plush sits here rather than in the generic teddy. Pokémon, Stitch and Hello Kitty follow whatever a child is watching, and they are chosen for the face more than the fabric. Squishmallows, the round, spandex-skinned plush, and Jellycat, with its velvety fur and odd subjects from aubergines to dragons, are collected as much as hugged; every design has a name, and once it is retired it gets harder to find. Labubu sits at the edge of the category, a vinyl face on a plush body, bought blind-boxed and clipped to a bag. Bears, dogs, sloths and the rest of the animal plush have their own page under stuffed animals, and cloth dolls are listed with dolls.
A plush for a cot or a plush for a shelf:
decide which before you choose, because the details that make a collectible charming are the ones to leave out of a baby’s bed. For the very young, look for embroidered eyes and nose rather than plastic or glued-on ones, no ribbons or bead-filled paws, and a body that can go in the washing machine; there are more first toys under baby and toddler toys. A plush with a sound box or lights inside can only be wiped clean, which matters more than the tune once it has been dragged around the house. For a shelf, the tags and the size are what count. Squishmallows run from keychain minis to bean-bag giants, and a listing that only says “large” leaves the buyer guessing, so ask for a measurement.
Sloths and toucans from the souvenir shelf:
these are the plush Costa Rica is known for abroad, and plenty stay in the country when visitors pack light or come back from a weekend in Monteverde. Quality varies more than the photos show. A cheap rack sloth has glued eyes and thin fur that mats within months, while realistic models from makers such as Aurora, Gund or Wild Republic have proper weight and Velcro paws that let the sloth hang from a branch or a child’s neck.
Telling a real Squishmallow, Jellycat or Labubu from a copy:
the tags tell you more than the fur does. A genuine Squishmallow has a printed hang tag and two tags sewn into the seam naming Kellytoy as the maker; blurry print, spelling slips or missing seam tags point to a copy. A Jellycat carries a card tag with the plush’s name and style code and a fabric label at the base whose code starts with JELLY. A real Labubu has exactly nine teeth, clean paint around the eyes and, on newer releases, a QR code on the tag that leads to the maker’s own site. Wear shows in predictable places. Fur goes matted or pilled on the face and arms where it was held, stuffing turns flat or lumpy after a hot dryer, and seams open first under the arms and at the neck. Check that the eyes are firm, and smell it: smoke and pets stay in the filling long after a wash.
When a plush is worth a listing of its own:
when it is tagged, collectible, licensed or big. An ordinary untagged teddy moves better in a bundle, and a collectible without its hang tag is just a soft toy to the people who pay most for it. Give the character or design name and the height in centimetres, photograph both sides of the hang tag and the sewn label, and add a close-up of the fur in daylight. Say whether it has been washed and whether it comes from a home with pets or smokers. Anyone who comes to collect a Labubu will count its teeth and scan the code in front of you, so keep the box and the card it came with.