Beanie Babies! (And their history, briefly.)

Has anyone ever collected these? Just curious. I have about fifty set aside. (No, this is not an advertisement.) I even have one with a few tag errors. (Those are sought after.) In case you don't know about Beanie Babies or you don't want to look them up, I will give a brief history:

Beanie Babies were first displayed to the public (and made) in 1993. These Beanie Babies are known as the Original Nine. They were under-stuffed (just like the Beanie Babies to follow) and could be bought with a child's budget. (5$) In 1996, however, the Beanie Craze really took off. It did because Ty noticed that the fabric on Peanut the Royal Blue Elephant wasn't correct. They changed the fabric from a royal blue to a light blue and people began the tedious task of looking in numerous toy stores to find a Royal Blue Peanut. H. Ty Warner, the guy who started the whole thing and who currently owns 100% of the company, noticed this and began "retiring" more Beanie Babies, albeit quicker now. This process would continue until four years later, when, since the Fad was declining, Ty announced that ALL Beanie Babies were to be retired. They quickly changed their mind, however, and allowed the public to choose in a poll whether to have ALL Beanie Babies stay or be retired. The public overwhelmingly said to keep manufacturing Beanie Babies. Afterwards, most people say that the Beanie Baby Fad ended. Ty continued to make Beanie Babies, but they were never as special as they were in the late 90's.

So, to repeat, has anyone ever collected these?

And, as always, see yah!