Don’t Catch the Hump: Humphrey the Camel Price and Value Guide 2024

The Story of Humphrey the Camel

Humphrey the Camel and his joyous hump entered the world on June 25th, 1994. At the time, Beanie Babies as a product and a concept were still in their infancy, and the Beanie Babies craze of the mid-90s was still a few years away. Humphrey sat on store shelves with the other first-generation Beanie Babies, but he suffered a different fate than his brothers and sisters.

You see, Humphrey the Camel was retired early. WAY early.

The poor camel was in production for just ten days short of a year, having been discontinued on June 15th, 1995. A sad fate, considering how much joy he brought to people who knew him after he arrived. But then, something happened. The last of the available Humphreys were snatched up from stores, and his value skyrocketed! Many Beanie Baby collectors consider Humphrey’s retirement and subsequent boost in popularity to be one of the earliest examples of the Beanie Baby phenomenon, and that popularity has found a way to remain strong over the course of nearly thirty years.

Note: Just as with any Beanie Baby that gains a high level of status, Humphrey the Camel is subject to rampant counterfeiting. We have some tips and tricks for you to follow that will help you avoid fake Humphreys at the end of this blog.

How Many Versions of Humphrey the Camel Are There?

Unlike some of the other Beanie Babies we have covered like Peanut the Elephant and Patti the Platypus, there aren’t crazy numbers of variants of Humphrey the Camel. In fact, there’s just one!

That means that when Humphrey’s production was shut down in 1995, that was it. The roughly 25,000 units that were made were the only ones in circulation, and that’s a startlingly low number for a Beanie Baby! (Source: Beaniepedia)

At any rate, here is a breakdown of Humphrey the Camel:

Humphrey the Camel

Humphrey was introduced on 6/25/94 and retired on 6/14/95. He has a soft, light brown coat, perfectly round, beady little eyes, and a tail that has been tied into a knot along with long, limp, dangly legs. He’s a very simple Beanie without too much in the way of extraneous detail, but that also might be what makes him so endearing. You could get lost in his dark eyes for ages!

As a first-generation Beanie, Humphrey didn’t have an associated birthday or poem as you might have expected right out of the gate. It wasn’t till Humphrey was released as a Teenie Beanie Baby as part of McDonald’s 2000 series collection that any of this information was available for him. (Source: BeanieBabiesPriceGuide)

Birthday: 5/19/94
Poem:
Humphrey’s resting here amid
A desert near a pyramid.
He thinks that it would be just grand
To live somewhere that has less sand!

As you can see from his poem, Humphrey isn’t much of a fan of the sandy deserts you would typically associate camels with. And that’s just fine, because the shelves of collectors and beds of loving children are usually sand-free. Perfect for Humphrey!

You can find Humphrey the Camel with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd generation hang tags, but only 1st generation tush tags. He will always contain PVC pellets, though he might be made in China or Korea depending on when he was made.

How Much Is a Humphrey the Camel Beanie Baby Worth?

Rarity – How long was your Beanie produced? In the case of Humphrey the Camel, that’s just under a year. That long of a production run means that there are far fewer Humphries out there in the world than there are Beanie Babies like Chocolate the Moose or Valentino the Bear, and that’s always good for raising value.

Age – How old is your Beanie? The good thing about Humphrey is that there isn’t too much guessing to be done since he was only made for less than a year. Regardless of when your Humphrey actually rolled off of the production line, he’s going to be about 28 years old. Feeling old yet?

Materials – Beanie collectors like to differentiate the different filling materials some Beanies have been made with over the years. At first they were filled with PVC pellets, then PVC pellets, and now they are all filled with plastic pellets. Due to when Humphrey the Camel was made, he will only ever be found with PVC pellets. Unless he’s a fake!

Condition – The condition of your Beanies is always going to be the supreme indicator of value. If all of the other factors point to an extremely valuable Beanie, but your Humphrey is all stained, matted, and missing an eye, he’s not going to be worth all that much. Beanies that have been well taken care of and maintained will draw a premium over mistreated ones. Bonus points if it’s in great condition and you get it rated by reputable Beanie Baby appraisers like Becky’s True Blue Beanies!

Note: like our article covering the 25 Most Valuable Beanie Babies, the following section will utilize information from Sell2BBNovelties.com and recent eBay.com auctions.

Now, let’s see what kind of cash Humphrey the Camel has been going for lately.

Humphrey the Camel

Mint Condition – $150
Creased Tag – $120
No Hang Tag – $60

A good showing from Sell2BBNovelties.com! This isn’t among the highest offers we’ve ever seen from them – that would probably go to the Royal Blue Peanut the Elephant – but it’s certainly not bad. Most Beanies go for $0.50, so this is definitely a step up. Do we wish that something as coveted as Humphrey the Camel was more valued by them? Sure, but let’s check out eBay to see what’s going on over there.

Recent Sold Listing – ~ $1,400 (March 12th, 2024)
Most Outrageous Listing – $20,000
Highest Plausible Listing – $2,000

Ok, so, things are pretty interesting on eBay for Humphrey the Camel. A great condition Beanie was purchased this summer via a Best Offer, but the price on the listing was $1,400 – so quite a lot. It’s difficult to tell how much lower the actual sale price was, but it’s easy to assume that it was still in the same ballpark.

As for the nutter with the $20,000 listing, maybe they hit an extra zero by accident and decided to roll with it? Who knows, but I have a feeling that’ll be sitting there for a long time. Much more plausible and interesting is the $2,000 listing. As I suggested before, this Humphrey was vetted, appraised, and encased by Becky’s True Blue Beanies and given a rating of “Museum Quality”. Now THIS is an excellent item, and one that collectors everywhere should be keeping an eye on. Listings like this don’t come around very often, and whoever picked it up on January 28th, 2024 is a very lucky person.

How Do I Know if My Humphrey the Camel Beanie Baby Is Valuable?

Now, for the good stuff. 

There’s no getting around it – there are a ton of counterfeit Humphries masquerading as perfect-condition originals by sellers who won’t typically take a refund. These Beanies usually look the part, but there will always be little details that don’t match up exactly. It’s these little details that are the dead giveaways.

Eyes – Official Humphrey the Camels will always have solid black bead eyes. Many counterfeits have two-tone eyes that give the impression of irises and perhaps even a more expressive gaze, but they’re no good. Don’t be fooled by the eyes!

Date – We have seen some Humphries with 1994 printed on their tush tags. FAKE! Real Humphries will only have 1993 stamped there, and it will always have a 1st or 2nd generation tush tag.

Hang Tags – Always look for inconsistencies in hang tags. Humphrey will only have hang tags from generations one through three, so if what you see falls beyond that, you probably have a fake. A great reference point when assessing different generations of Beanie Baby hang tags can be found here.

Thanks for reading this Humphrey the Camel value guide! We love this Beanie, and we hope you do too. If you enjoyed this, you should also check out our other Beanie Baby content! We’ve made similar guides for Princess the Bear, Millennium the Bear, and Peace the Bear, which are all great resources for collectors and Beanie Baby fans alike!

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Mike Alexander

Mike is a video game enthusiast, a chronicler of the 90s, and a collector of many things. Born in the mid-90s, he was able to catch the wave of some of the best things the decade had to offer, like Power Rangers, Pokémon, Bagel Bites, the list goes on. Despite the amount of time that has passed, he still enjoys many of those things today! If he’s not writing or gaming, he’s probably wondering why Warriors of Virtue didn’t take off the same way Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did.

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