We love Littlest Pet Shops here. I’ve made a living out of selling them on eBay for many years, and I know that people love to collect these cute little LPS toys. But, there is also a huge underground market of the pets designed to rip people off. They want to collect your money and pass off fake littlest pet shops to you! In order to not get scammed when building your collection…
Here are the LPS Buying Guide Tips:
7 Most Important Things You Need to Know Before You Buy Littlest Pet Shop So You Can Sell Them
1) Look out for fakes. I would personally never buy directly from China. While it is true, you can score some good deals on the pets, there are a lot of fakes that come out from that direction. LPS #675 dachshund as shown in the first picture is heavily reproduced by people other than Hasbro. They call this dog “after market” or “special edition.” She is not a Hasbro special edition, and by claiming she is ‘after market’ is very misleading. It is not made by Hasbro and many collectors and children alike would be very disappointed. The second picture shows another dachshund known to be a fake.
2) Kenner made LPS in the 1990’s. They are definitely not a new thing, however, the pets that were made “pre-Hasbro” are called ‘vintage.’ A new version of the LPS was introduced by Hasbro in 2005. They began making them with wider eyes, and completely different than their previous versions. They featured pink magnets underneath, and then slowly progressed to gray magnets, and the newest pets do not have magnets at all, but rather, a hole. You can pretty much age a pet by the color of the magnet on the bottom of the foot or lack thereof a magnet.
In 2012, the newest style LPS was introduced. Pets feature bigger, more rounded eyes and different bodies. Later on in 2013, pets bodies were restored, yet the eyes were kept from the 2012 edition, which are still being created today. There are currently over 3,000 different pets produced since 2005.
3) LPS rotate in stores every 1-3 months, depending on the store. What you see there available today, will most likely not be there tomorrow. Therefore, the older pets are highly sought after due to that fact. Many children also do not like the newer style of the new pets (for the most part, they do not care for the newer style eyes).
4) Hasbro used to have circle stickers that came in the packages. You would collect them and redeem them for Special Edition pets. Hasbro stopped that in 2013. Now, there is an android/iphone/ipad app that kids can download free and use the app cards (called tokens) that come in the new pets to play on the app. Many kids love the app.
Fun Tip: Blythe Baxter was created in 2012. We love watching the cartoons here. There are 4 video’s full of short cartoons Hasbro has produced to date.
5) Many adults and children alike collect the pets. Kids love to play with them for years. I have seen even 13 year old teens playing with them. Hasbro makes houses, stuffed animals, bedroom decor, bedding, pets, Blythe (similar to Barbie but way better!), and so on.
You can dress them up and role play. Some kids even like to make video’s on YouTube and have thousands of followers!
The pets themselves measure approx. 2″ tall. Teensies (smaller versions of pets for on-the-go traveling play) measure approx 1.”
6) Reselling and Care of Your Pets. If you plan to keep them for future generations or resell them in the future, you will want to make sure you never write on them with permanent marker or pen. Some parents like to write initials or dots on them, and they are basically near worthless at that point. There are a few pets that go upwards of $100, so writing on them would be tragic.
Another thing you’ll never want to do is to bathe them or soak them in water. They get rust rings very easily and again, are basically worthless if they do. Surface wash them only and dry them immediately.
7) Newest Pets. Blind bags are little baggies that Hasbro releases for some pets. They are just that, blind bags. They are usually cheaper in price than the regular pets, but you cannot see which pet you are purchasing. In my experience, blind bag pets are never as valuable as the regular LPS, nor do they become more valuable in time.
Likewise, Hasbro began creating pets called Roller-roo’s. They are not like any other pet. They are basically a very small ball with a face painted on them. You can fit them into certain clothes, known as ‘bodies.’ Most children are not impressed with this style of pet, and they are easily lost.
I hope this LPS buying guide advice has helped you in being a more educated buyer. The more educated we are, the less likely we are to lose our hard-earned money. Do you like LPS? Are your kids obsessed with them? Do they have any rares?
Joanne says
Hi, my daughter has over 300 of these and three boxes of accessories.
She said she has lots of rare pets too. We could sell these and we would put money into a trust fund for when she is older as she never plays with them anymore as she is 13 now.
Thank you
Sarah Titus says
Absolutely Joanne. Great idea! 🙂
Kimberlie s behmer says
Hi my daughter has probably close to 250 + LPS. She is now 10 and plays with only a select # of them. I have spent $100’s of $$$ and weve agreed to sell some as well as houses and accessories. I would like to know the best way to go about this and she is also interested in trading. I would like this to be fun sd well as lucrative for both ourselves and the buyers. Can u please help me. tysm
Kimberlie
Tatiana says
Hi! I would like to buy Lps for my daughter. I just don’t mind to pay but I don’t want fakes. Is there a trusted seller you could recommend. I really appreciate your help.
Thanks
Mary-Jean says
Thank you so much for your help. This will make my life easier lol. One question are red magnets fakes?
Have a wonderful day
Mary-Jean
Sarah Titus says
So glad. 🙂 Is it pink or red? Pink magnets doesn’t mean it’s fake but some fake ones use pink magnets too.
Carrington Shaw says
Oh, this was a fun read! I had forgotten that Littlest Pet Shop existed, and how adorable it was! Thanks for the trip down memory lane!
Sarah Titus says
Absolutely. <3
wendy cunningham says
Hi Sarah…Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge about the LPS pets. I have a bunch that I love organizing and bagging. I will eventually sell them, but only after I educate myself a lot more…thanks to you! Do you know of any price guides or books that list every LPS figure? I would love to have that as a check off type of resource for my collection. If not, why don’t you consider writing such a book? I would definitely buy it! I am a teacher and I require each of my students to collect something, that I can add to for them, and learn everything there is to know about whatever they choose to collect. I supply them with collector books on the items they choose, however, I cannot find anything on LPS values, pictures, etc. I want something comprehensive, all in one big book! You should be very proud of yourself. You seem like a fantastic mom. Best of luck in your future.
Sarah Titus says
For a collection book, only Hasbro could possibly do something like that b/c they would be the only ones who could have all the pictures of the pets. A person wouldn’t be able to collect all 3k+ pets to be able to picture them and using someone else’s pictures is against copyright. With the pricing, prices are on ebay and they fluctuate daily (even hourly), so a price book wouldn’t be relevant either. It’s a cool thought, something I’ve thought about doing before too, but just not something that’s feasible unfortunately. 🙁