Did they only make 250 Helena Braun Bobbles?

[jjkoestler]

I recently contacted the Helena Brewers regarding the availability of the Braun bobbleheads because I was curious about how many were actually made. According to the Helena Brewers website they gave away 250 which would make the Braun one of the rarest Brewers bobbles. However, Helena's assistant GM Nick Bowsher told me "Another party purchased the bobble heads to cover our costs and help us with the minimum." To me, the statement could mean several things, and I will contact him again to get an explanation. If the minimum was 250 and the company/sponsor paid for the bobbles then there are only 250 in circulation. However, if the minimum was greater than 250 there are more in circulation. If this is the case, someone could be making quite a bit of money selling the extras. Thoughts?

[madgrad]

This is the situation with the Helena Brewers as I have a friend very close to the organization...

 

There has been some outside influence for the team to have a bobblehead giveaway. This means that they have received additional funds for getting the Braun bobbles manufactured, but there is still only 250 that were made. The Helena Brewers, being a small organization, couldn't create the bobblehead/giveaway without the help of both the sponsors on the actual bobblehead and the venture of an outside investment which made the giveaway possible.

[jjkoestler]

From Assistant GM Nick Bowsher

"We gave away 250 bobbleheads. There were 50 in the variant jersey. We got half of the variant jersey bobble heads. To get the promotion going, a third party purchased 150 bobbleheads to help with our costs. We did not have a full sponsor at the time to get the give away going prior to the giveaway. We paid for most of the bobble head cost and got a minimul sponsorship."

[jjkoestler]

From Assistant GM Nick Bowsher

"There were 500 total made and 50 of the blue variant out of the 500."

[jjkoestler]

From Assistant GM Nick Bowsher

"We gave out 250. Third party got 150. We had another 100 we gave to Ryan Braun, staff, sponsors, etc."

[pepsimax23]

wow. that is cool to find out that there actually is a variant. there was suspicions that maybe some collectors were painting the white ones to increase the value. bobblehead business gets more interesting by the minute. that third party which made a purchase of 150 braunies at cost, they likely knew they could make a 8X profit.

[Paul77]

This is the situation with the Helena Brewers as I have a friend very close to the organization...

 

There has been some outside influence for the team to have a bobblehead giveaway. This means that they have received additional funds for getting the Braun bobbles manufactured, but there is still only 250 that were made. The Helena Brewers, being a small organization, couldn't create the bobblehead/giveaway without the help of both the sponsors on the actual bobblehead and the venture of an outside investment which made the giveaway possible.

This information, as pointed out above is not accurate. There were additional bobbles produced. I believe 500 was the minimum order from Promotional Adventure with an over / under run of up to 3% of the total ordered.

[Bikeage77]

250, 500, 1000, whatever the case may be, I'm glad I got it. Woulda been nice to get the variant jersey, but there's no way I'm gonna shell out what they are goin for. All things considered, it's a hobby and I enjoy collecting bobbles. But I also enjoyed collecting Jose Canseco baseball cards when I was 9, which is about what they go for now, or less. I coulda gotten a Sega but instead I got a piece of stupid cardboard.

[TURBO]

we had a poster on this site who seemed to have "quite a few" of these for sale... Seemed like he could get as many as he wanted...

 

Were these from the third party or the SGAs, I don't know...

[Paul77]

we had a poster on this site who seemed to have "quite a few" of these for sale... Seemed like he could get as many as he wanted...

Matt (my brother) didn't have an unlimited supply or anything. He had, what - 20 or so. Some times it pays to know someone, who knows someone.

[mattsr0625]

its real simple who cares yes i had a few. do you guys really think that when they say 500, 1500 or 40,000 that the only make that amount and then stop. i am in the manufacturing business and when customers make an order they get an overrun 99% of the time. if you are contacting the the gm you need to get off the computer and get a life. no offense but im tired of people making a big deal of bobble heads. they are not the most important thing in the world. but since people keep crying about this, the next time my contacts call me ill tell them the im out cause i dont want to hear all the babies crying. sorry to my loyal customers.

[TURBO]

I don't think anyone is crying, or complaining...

 

I find it interesting that when they say they are giving out 250, that actually, there are a lot more than that possibly on the open market.

 

By the way, collecting the bobbles is a hobby for some, I highly doubt they are the most important thing in the world to anyone, however, you should be happy that so many are willing to pay those prices for them since you are able to sell them...

[bdeuce05]

Matt - I hope the next time you have an opportunity, such as the one you presented us - your fellow Brewers fans, that you don't pass on the opportunity. I, and I am sure that the rest of us who purchased from you, really appreciate that you were willing to bring the Braun Helena bobbles to us. Without you, many of us would have gone the eBay route and probably would have ended up paying excessive amounts for this bobble. For the true Brewers/bobble collector, it doesn't matter whether there is 250 or 500 given away. What matters is that it is another Brewers bobble that we all can add to our collections.

 

To all of the doubters, there was still only 500 (maybe 600 - who cares) of this bobble produced, and it sounds like only 250 were given away to the general public. The Brewers supposedly give out 5,000 of the retro's, which in all the bobblehead games I have gone to I have only received one retro, and everyone seems to clamor over these (most of which seem to end up in the hands of Brewers employees - just my opinion as it seems that the same people are always selling them on eBay). Let's all just realize that whether there were 250, 500, or more of the Braun's out there, it still is the rarest bobblehead of the most popular Brewer around and leave it at that. If there was someone behind the scenes that "invested" in the Braun bobbles, without that person(s), it sounds to me like the Braun Helena bobble would have never been.

 

Sorry to preach, but I really do appreciate that Matt was able to bring this opportunity to us.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I agree with above, although the price of the Brauns has dropped to $45 range and we could have saved money had we waited ... But that said, I think $75 (Matt's price) was VERY fair at the time. The first few on eBay were approaching $100. I hope Matt gives us chances like that in the future with new bobbles.

[Bikeage77]

And the price on those will just go up in time. We all know that, look at the Beloit Prince Fielder for example. I'm happy Matt let us know about getting these, and I think 75 still is a fair price. After shipping, they seem to be right around the 75 mark anyway, last I had checked.

[jjkoestler]

its real simple who cares yes i had a few. do you guys really think that when they say 500, 1500 or 40,000 that the only make that amount and then stop. i am in the manufacturing business and when customers make an order they get an overrun 99% of the time. if you are contacting the the gm you need to get off the computer and get a life. no offense but im tired of people making a big deal of bobble heads. they are not the most important thing in the world. but since people keep crying about this, the next time my contacts call me ill tell them the im out cause i dont want to hear all the babies crying. sorry to my loyal customers.

I contacted the organization through the general email address on their website and their Assistant GM responded to my questions. Before shelling out money for the Braunies ($100 for the blue, $50 for the white) I wanted to see how many were made so I could make an educated decision. If that means I have no life, so be it.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Where were you getting a variant Braun for $100? The only one I saw sold for $217.

[mattsr0625]

I don't think anyone is crying, or complaining...

 

I find it interesting that when they say they are giving out 250, that actually, there are a lot more than that possibly on the open market.

 

By the way, collecting the bobbles is a hobby for some, I highly doubt they are the most important thing in the world to anyone, however, you should be happy that so many are willing to pay those prices for them since you are able to sell them...

people are crying about this. this is not the first time some new poster tried to put me in the topic of conversation about the braun bobbles. its real simple, if you need to make an "educated decision" (thats code for asking his wife) about a purchase for your hobby then you have find a new hobby. if its a piece of your collection that you need to buy, than get it. its a few weeks after the giveaway and they are on ebay, look there. calling the gm of the brewers is stupid. thats like calling the ceo of sony and asking them if the ps3 is a smart purchase. i dont want to offend most of the good posters on this site, but some people take this too far. its a collection and hobby for me i only like to offer something like the brauns when i feel like everyyone involved is getting a fair deal. i never once ripped off or tried to screw anyone on this site. its funny that there were so many people that jumped in on this deal with me. no one cared as long as they were able to get one. this is my last post on this topic. if anyone has a problem we can continue this via private message.

[PeaveyFury]

There's a lot of condescension and accusations here- shutting this one down before we have to start issuing strikes.