There's no doubt there is a huge craze surrounding the TMX Elmo, being touted as this years hottest toy for the Christmas season.

After selling a few myself, I have noticed some differences in the auctions showing up on eBay these days, with sellers claiming they have one of the rare "Warning" boxes.

Read on to see why the warning box's won't be rare for long ...

My Girlfriend and I have been doing a lot of research on TMX Elmo since before he hit the store shelves on Sept 19th. We have noticed a lot of speculation, and claims being made by all sorts of people, but there is an active forum my Girlfriend watches daily. This forum is one of the most active forums for Moms, so there has been a lot of discussion about TMX Elmo.

One of the biggest discussions has been when new shipments will arrive in stores, there have been a lot of parents calling their local stores and posting what they have found out on the forum. We had heard there would be shipments in mid October, and some stores reporting shipments coming Oct 1st (today).

The current buzz now is, the stores who got them in today had very limited supplies from only 12 units to 50, and these parents have been told by their local store they won't be getting any new shipments until after Christmas.

Yes, this is still speculation, and no one knows 100% what the supply will be like for this Christmas. (except Fisher-Price) Lets say just for arguments sake, there will be another large shipment of TMX Elmo's before the Christmas rush. If 10 years ago can be any indicator, the next shipment will not be enough to squash the demand.

Think of this for a moment, do you think any manufacturer wants their product to be sitting on store shelves gathering dust this season. I don't know of any who would, and Fisher-Price has already gauged the demand for TMX Elmo with the Sept 19th release, and even though they have an idea of the demand, they still don't want them to sit on the shelves. So naturally they will "short" the supply to keep demand high.

Now ... to the question of the "Top Secret" box or the "Warning" box ...

The top secret box was for the initial launch, the "Top Secret" one, but now that TMX Elmo is no longer a secret you will start to see the warning box's in future shipments to stores.

With that, you will start to see the "Top Secret" Elmos fading out and becoming more of the "Rare" find.

I am going to go out on a limb here and predict there will be "Top Secret" Elmos going for more than $500 before the Christmas season is finished. I have to add this little disclaimer ... the $500 price is my opinion and is not a guarantee, therefore if you purchase Elmos for resale and loose money hoping for a $500 price you can't come after me, it's only a guess ;-)

Bottom line is ... don't fall for the line that the rare box is the "Warning" box, think of the "Top Secret" box as being the first edition ;-)

Enjoy . . . Scott