My Ninja Turtle Action Figure Windfall

I was never a toy collector. As a teenager I was a comic book collector, but I didn’t think of it as an investment. I bought the comics I enjoyed reading, not the ones I thought would appreciate in value. Although I did save them all in mylar sleeves with acid-free backing boards in long cardboard boxes, just in case.

The worlds of comic and toy collecting crossed over, so I would occasionally hear stories about old Star Wars action figures in their original packaging that sold for some astronomical price. But toys hold their value best when they are unopened, so you can’t really enjoy them, and they take a lot of space. Collecting toys seemed very speculative and not worth the trouble on the off chance that one of them becomes collectible.

But in 1988, when the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys came out, I decided I would buy just one toy, and keep it unopened. That one toy would be my only action figure investment. But of the four Ninja Turtles, which one should I get? I landed on Michelangelo, figuring that since he was the “fun” character, he might some day be sought after. So I spent $3.99 on one Michelangelo Ninja Turtle action figure and put it in a box in my closet.

30 years later, I remembered it.

By then I had a family and was living across the country from Michelangelo, who I was pretty sure was still in a box in my old bedroom closet in my parents’ house. I wondered if that old toy was worth anything, so I did some research online. I learned three important things.

• First: In 1988, the toy company Playmate made their initial run of Ninja Turtle toys with soft rubber heads rather than hard plastic heads. This was apparently to hedge their bets in case the toy didn’t take off, since rubber heads were less expensive to manufacture. But they soon switched to making them with plastic heads, and any unopened rubber “soft-head” toys became rare collectibles.

So if my Michelangelo had a rubber head, it might be worth something.

• Second: Those early rubber-headed Ninja Turtle toys also had a folded up piece of paper inside the packaging advertising the TMNT Fan Club. The fan club flyer is a visible indicator that it is indeed an original-run Ninja Turtle toy.

So if my Michelangelo had a fan club flyer, that confirms its rarity.

• Third: Michelangelo’s weapon of choice is nunchucks, and all the toys included a set of tiny plastic nunchucks among the accessories. But some of the nunchucks were molded to look like they were connected with a beaded chain, while others just had smooth plastic. The beaded nunchucks were far more rare.

So if my Michelangelo had beaded nunchucks, it was the most valuable kind.

After searching eBay and reading more articles about Ninja Turtle toy sales, it looked like a Michelangelo with some combination of the above traits could sell anywhere in the $100 - $300 range.

So the next time I visited my parents, I eagerly dug out my old Michelangelo toy, which was exactly where I left it in my old bedroom closet. It had a soft rubber head. It had the fan club flyer. But it did not have beaded nunchucks. Still, two out of three ain’t bad!

When I got back home, I photographed it from every angle I imagined a potential buyer might want to see, and I listed it on eBay.

Throughout the seven-day auction, I received several offers from people wanting to buy it immediately. The highest offer was $130. It was tempting, but I decided that if this many people wanted it, I would just wait and see how high the auction got.

When the virtual hammer fell, the final sale price was $250, plus shipping. I couldn’t believe it. After 30 years, my $3.99 investment paid off!

But it turned out that wasn’t the only old Ninja Turtle in a box at my parents’ house.

My father has a bit of a hoarding tendency. He’s never been as bad as those people you see on TV whose homes are full of so much junk that they can’t find their way around, but at least one room of his house is full of boxes of old books, toys, VHS tapes, magic paraphernalia, and other things he doesn’t need. He buys multiple copies of things, and rationalizes that some day some of them might make good gifts. And then they sit in boxes.

When I told my dad about my $250 Ninja Turtle, he said, “You know, when you bought your turtle, I think I bought a few more. They might be in a box here somewhere.”

I didn’t bother asking him to check for rubber heads and fan club flyers. I just figured that the next time I visit, I’d take a look for myself.

Then the pandemic hit. So it would be a while.

A few months ago, I finally made it to Arizona to see my parents for the first time in three years. It was great to see them. But I had another item on my agenda: Find those Ninja Turtles.

I went through boxes, opening them one at a time until I found the toys halfway down a stack that nearly reached the ceiling. There were eight toys in total: all four turtles, their nemesis Shredder, two identical Master Splinter toys, and a character I’d never heard of named Genghis Frog. All were unopened.

The turtles all had rubber heads and fan club flyers. Score!

I was able to determine the release dates of the other toys using something else I learned in my research. When the first run of TMNT toys came out, there were ten characters available, and each toy from that initial run featured pictures of all ten characters on the back. They are known among collectors as “10 backs.” So I was able to confirm that Splinter and Shredder were also from that first run because they were “10 backs.” Genghis Frog had 14 characters on the back, which helped me identify him as a 1989 toy.

When I got back home with all the toys, I found a TMNT Toy Collectors group on Facebook and asked for advice. I shared a photo of all the toys and asked if I would be better off selling them as a single lot, or individually. I had a feeling I already knew the answer, but this was also my way of introducing myself to a group of collectors that might be potential buyers.

The consensus was that I would make more money selling them individually, except for one person who made the sweet suggestion that since my father kept them all these years, I should hang on to them as an heirloom. I also got several immediate offers to buy them, which I declined. But I promised I would return to let everyone know when they went up for auction.

I inspected and took meticulous photos of each toy and prepared the eBay listings. I decided to put them all up for sale except for one of the two identical Splinter toys, so I wouldn’t be competing against myself if someone was looking specifically for that toy. I timed the eBay listings to end on a Sunday night, 15 minutes apart so that bidders could try to win more than one toy.

Within an hour of the auctions going up, I received several offers to buy them all outright. I told everyone I was going to let the auctions run to completion. Some people said they intended to try to buy them all. I wished them luck!

I went back to my new friends at the TMNT Toy Collectors group and let them all know the toys were now up for auction. Soon some of the sales had more than 60 “watchers,” and I hoped they all planned on bidding.

Seven days later, these were the final prices for the seven toys:

Cowabunga. Including the original Michelangelo toy that I had already sold, the grand total came to $1,898.50 (plus shipping) for eight toys!

My biggest fear now is that everyone will learn the wrong lessons from all this. My dad will think that it was worth holding onto the toys all these years because they went up in value. He has dozens of other old unopened toys in boxes, and I have no desire to go through them all and see what any of them are worth. I assume this was a lucky fluke because there happened to be a change in the manufacturing process that made these rare, and it still doesn’t make me want to be a toy collector. I wouldn’t encourage it for anyone else.

Also, I foolishly promised my kids a 10% cut before I listed these toys because that seemed like a Cool Dad thing to do and how much could that come to, really? Now I owe them $190. I don’t actually know what lesson they’ll take away from that.

And I still have the problem of figuring out what to do with all the long boxes of comics I collected as a kid, which are still sitting in my old bedroom closet at my parents’ house. I could just recycle them or give them away. But some of those have got to be worth something.

Right?

[Update: The buyer of the Shredder toy backed out, so I have relisted it. I have also listed the second Splinter toy. If you’re interested in either, go bid!]

And that brings this edition of the newsletter to a close. Thanks for reading. Now you can tell people you read an article about someone who sold a rare Michelangelo for $312 and see if they assume you’re talking about the Old Master painter. See how long it takes them to catch on. Good fun.

Later, dudes.

David