They were once the heroes in a half-shell that delighted a generation of children, but four decades of ageing have turned some original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume pieces into the stuff of genuine nightmares. Despite that, it seems that there are collectors still desperate to own their own piece of Turtles history, boosting a recent auction to around 10 times over estimates.
A lot of screen-used costume pieces from 1993’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, headlined by a badly decayed turtle head, recently went under the hammer as part of Prop Store’s Planet Hollywood auction. With a very reasonable pre-sale estimate of $400 to $800, the bundle ended up selling for way over even the high-end value, at over $5,000. Not even an advanced decaying of the foam and latex that makes up most of the features of these pieces could put people off wanting to get their hands on it.
The centrepiece of the lot was a foam latex turtle head that, like many of its kind, has not aged well. Instead of being a friendly, grinning turtle that every kid would have been happy to hi-five with a cowabunga in the early 1990s, the piece is now a grimacing monstrosity of teeth, wires, and eyeballs that is more living dead than Ninja Turtle.
Constructed of spotted green foam latex skin over a foam-filled base, complete with resin teeth and acrylic eyes, the head has become a casualty like many practical prosthetics and costumes of 30 years ago. Large cracks and dry flaking of the latex have left large splits running across the head, and the once wisecracking amphibian is not great to look at. However, alongside a pair of production-made turtle shorts, a performer’s communication pack, and several other pieces, this has been a collection that attracted a lot of attention.
The costumes for the films were built by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop using foam latex, a material prized for its realism and flexibility on camera but notoriously poor at retaining its appearance as the years advance. Foam latex dries out, discolours, crumbles and tears, which is why so many screen-used creature costumes from the 1980s and 1990s now appear to be rotting. For collectors, that decay is simply part of the piece’s story, and as unsettling as it appears, there is clearly plenty of money and interest in these vintage items.
The 1990s live-action Turtles films hold a treasured place in the hearts of a generation, and genuine, screen-used costume pieces from them do not come up at auction very often. Their Creature Shop origins, hand-crafted by the team that brought together movies like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, alongside the provenance of the famous Planet Hollywood collection, make it easy to see why these items sold for so much more than expected. There is also the fact that the original Ninja Turtles costumes were among some of the last projects to be worked on by Jim Henson before his death, further adding a reason why these hold a special place in movie history.
That said, the memorabilia market can be unpredictable, and not every lot fares the same way. Screen-used turtle costumes can also sell for a lot less than this collection. Another lot in the Planet Hollywood auction had another set of various pieces of turtle costumes from the original movie, and despite also having a head as part of its item inventory, that one sold for less than half this set. Auction prices can be impacted by many factors outside the details of the items themselves. The timing of an auction can essentially decide whether a prized piece makes its worth or goes for a song if the wrong person is not around when the bidding closes.
Ultimately, this sale captures one of those strange facts about collecting. A set of rotting, cracked, and torn costume fragments, the kind of thing most people would throw out, can sell for a few thousand dollars, or even more depending on its brand appeal. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brand is one that has endured for decades and doesn’t show any signs of losing its fandom just yet.
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