Turtle Power at Hake's: Signed TMNT #1 CGC 9.8 Brings $192K
Still below 2021's $250K record, but a Gobbledygook #1 just set its own record at $132K. Here's what it means.
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Forty-plus years after Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's black-and-white debut, the Turtles just pulled six figures twice in one sale. Hake's Auctions closed its Lawrence Klein Collection Part 1 sale on October 21, and the two most valuable Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles appearances in the sale brought a combined $324,000.
The headline is the TMNT #1. The sleeper is a little zine called Gobbledygook. Let's get into both.
Image: Hake's Auctions lot photo, used with credit.
The numbers
TMNT #1 (1984), first print, CGC/JSA 9.8, signed by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird: $192,000. Overstreet reports a $192,000 result. Hake's lot
Gobbledygook #1 (1984), CGC 9.4 Signature Series, authenticated by Kevin Eastman: $132,000, a record for the book in any grade, per Overstreet. Hake's lot
TMNT #5, page 10 original art (all four Turtles): $60,000, a record for a page of TMNT original art. It sat in a private collection for 40 years and had never been to auction. Hake's lot
Todd McFarlane Amazing Spider-Man #302 page: $48,000, and his ASM #304 title splash (inks by Joe Rubinstein): $40,800. Overstreet, Hake's #302 lot
Who was Lawrence Klein?
Hake's bills Klein as "the Turtles' first fan." According to Overstreet, his dad took him to New York comic cons as a kid, where he met creators and got books signed, then moved into sketches and original pages. That's why this sale was loaded with signed keys and art that hadn't seen the open market in decades. Single-owner, long-held collections with a story like that tend to pull bidders in. Part 1 ran 233 lots from September 28 to October 21.
Are the Turtles back, or still below 2021?
Both, honestly. Here's the context. In 2021, ComicConnect sold CGC 9.8 copies of TMNT #1 for $240,000 in August, $245,000 in September and a record $250,000 in December. Go back to 2019 and Heritage sold a 9.8 for $90,000.
So $192,000 is roughly 23% below the $250,000 peak, but more than double where 9.8s traded before the 2021 boom (our math). And remember, this copy is a CGC/JSA signature-authenticated book signed inside the front cover, not a straight blue-label copy, so it's not a perfect apples-to-apples comp.
Our read: the top of the TMNT market hasn't recovered its 2021 high, but it never collapsed either. Real demand is still there at six figures for the right copy, which is exactly what Hake's GM Kelly McClain was getting at: "Forty-plus years later, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles still got it!"
Why Gobbledygook is the sleeper
If you only know TMNT #1, here's the deal. Gobbledygook #1 is a 1984 Mirage Studios zine by Eastman and Laird. It has the first appearance of the Fugitoid, and its back cover carries an ad for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 that came out before the Turtles' comic debut, per Overstreet. That's the hook: it's Turtles history before the Turtles existed on a newsstand.
The result says a lot. A 9.4 Gobbledygook brought $132,000, about 69% of what the 9.8 TMNT #1 brought in the same sale (our math), and it set the record for the book in any grade. The TMNT #5 page tied it together, with the Fugitoid introducing himself to the Turtles on that page.
Speculation: when a pre-debut key sells for this close to the main key, collectors who got priced out of TMNT #1 may start hunting Gobbledygook #1 and #2 instead. Thin sales history means any new wave of demand could move prices fast in either direction.
What it means for collectors and flippers
Use 2021 as the ceiling, not the floor. If you're pricing a high-grade TMNT #1, the market just paid $192K, not $250K.
Provenance pays. Signed-by-both-creators and single-owner history clearly helped here (our read).
Art is the quiet winner. A record $60K TMNT page and two McFarlane Spidey pages in the $40Ks show original art is pulling real money.
Grade risk is real. TMNT #1 has a mostly black cover that makes small defects obvious, as Bleeding Cool noted, so 9.8s stay scarce.
What to watch next
This was Part 1 of the Klein collection, so watch for Part 2 dates from Hake's. Also keep an eye on the next public 9.8 TMNT #1 sale. If one clears $200K, the "Turtles are back" argument gets a lot stronger.
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