Are the Soft Head or the Hard Head TMNT the first 1988 figures?
 

I want to collect the true original 1988 figures. What came first the soft head figures, the hard head figures, the soft head figures with the fan club flier, or the figures with the pop up display?

Thanks,

Nate

I'm not the true expert on this, but I'm quite positive that the figures with the fan club fliers were the very first (and they had the soft heads).

Hmm... I noticed there is quite a price difference between a Donatello say with the flier and a Shredder with the flier on Myteefinestuff.com. Were there less Shredders made with the flier? More importantly can someone verify that the fan club flier soft heads were the 1st runs? Those might be a little too expensive for me lol, but I would like to know. I might be able to get at least some of the 1st runs (the cheaper ones). Thanks again,

Nate

Myteefinestuff.com is such a rip off, why does anyone buy stuff from them?

I'm not sure what they're charging...but the only figures that originally came with fan club flyers were the four turtles themselves. Any others you see with flyers (Shredder, Bebop, etc.) are extremely rare and were from an accidental run.

Also, yes, the flier soft head versions of the Turtles are first run.
There are also some later versions where the back of the package says there's a fan club flyer , but it's not there...

Okay, I did not know that. Cool! Since i've found April with Fan Club flyer i'm convinced that Foot Soldier also exists with the flyer and I check every Foot Soldier figure that shows up on Ebay. No luck yet, but i'm not giving up.

Re: Fan Club Foot Soldier
 

I figured the guy at myteefinestuff.com would be one of the most knowledgeable about this stuff so I wrote to him and asked a lot about the 1988 editions. Judging by his answer I'm not sure there is a fan club foot soldier, but he could have mistakingly omitted it in his response, because he didn't say there wasn't. Basically, I asked if he could confirm the following...

- the 1st batch of runs for the Turtles were the soft heads (small punch) with the fan club forms
- the 1st batch of runs for Shredder, Bebop, Splinter, and Rocksteady were the soft heads (small punch) with out the fan club forms, but there was a rare accidental run in the first batch that did include the fan club form for each of those.
- April's first batch of runs were the no stripe hard heads (but still small punch) with out a fan club form.
- The first batch of Foot Soldiers were hard heads (but still small punch) with out a fan club form

He confirmed the above as true and also added that any April, Splinter, Rocksteady, Shredder or Bebop with the form is very rare. He didn't mention the Foot Soldier there, which leads me to believe it might not exist since he did mention April.

Hey welcome to the board! Thanks for the info! I really like the guy from Myteefinestuff.com he's nice and really knows his stuff. -Steven

Yeah he does know his stuff and is really nice..he said he is retired so he must have alot of time to research the figs actual toy value even though no one wants to pay it...he does have alot of rare figs but everytime i am tempted to buy those i end up either getting them off ebay first or just seeing them on there for cheaper which prevents me from buying them from him...i always have both his page and ebay's page up when i am bidding on figures so i can use his page as a reference, so if the items on ebay go for more than he offers then i don' bid....he always describes the figs very well aslo and if you order a figure that is...say a C8 and he somehow was mistaken and doesn't have a C8 in that model he will replace it with a C9 or better for no additional charge...nice guy..

I... Oh god, this is going to sound horrible... but... I ordered like a ton of the 10 cent weapons from his site... The poor guy had to count out a 100 of the General Traag blasters! But they look soo good with Triceratons!

Usually his loose items are very reasonable. Just don't buy boxed items from him.

It's the Softhead versions. I recall buying them when they first came out. And they were soft and squishy!

The second versions had hard heads.

Hope that helps.

I wonder if you eat crow with that comment, seeing what prices are now in 2026 !! Actually they were higher 2 to 3 summers ago, they are coming down now…. I miss myteefinestuff…. :( They just vanished over night and were gone !!

I miss Spitfire and myteefinestuff

1988: Soft heads with fan forms

Early 1989: Soft heads without fan forms

Late 1989: Hard heads

Early 1990: Hard heads with pop-up mutant displays

1991: Hard head reissues