The cost of your childhood? $3 million.

Catching up with buyers after the Power Rangers memorabilia auction

Jan 30, 2025

Editorial note: A reminder that my book, “Morphenomenal: How the Power Rangers Conquered the World” comes out in April! If you’re a fan of Power Rangers, pop culture or TV history, I think you’ll love it. Available at Amazon, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble or through your favorite independent bookseller.

If you walked outside, stopped 100 people on the street and asked them, “What item fetched the highest price at Heritage Auctions’ recent sale of Power Rangers memorabilia?,” I’m confident you would be punched in the face more times than you’d get the right answer. I’d believe that even if the number of times you got punched in the face was one.

That’s because the average adult stopped watching Power Rangers when they were 9 years old, and because the priciest item across 689 listed lots and 30 years of franchise history was one featured in the show’s latest season, Cosmic Fury, which premiered on Netflix in Sept. 2023. The Cosmic Blaster — an amalgamation of the heroes’ signature weapons and an allusion to its more famous progenitor, the Power Blaster — sold for a stunning $87,5001. That was nearly twice the final price of the next-closest item, another iconic prop that our street-people likely wouldn’t name: a transforming model of the Astro Megaship from Power Rangers in Space.

Across the visible history of props sold through Heritage Auctions, the Cosmic Blaster’s sale price2 ranked in the top 75 all-time, and the Astro Megazord ranks inside the top 1003. The Cosmic Blaster’s original end price matched that of several marquee props — a Grail Cup from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Marty McFly’s Mattel Hoverboard from Back to the Future Part II and a maquette of Baby Drogon from Game of Thrones — and exceeded lightsaber props used, respectively, by Samuel L. Jackson and Ewan McGregor ($82,500 apiece), a version of the board game from Jumanji ($62,500), and one of Christian Bale’s cowls from Batman Begins ($60,000).

At least one lot from the Power Rangers auction — #11037, containing what had been labeled as a White Ranger suit featured in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie — was canceled by Heritage Auctions after it was revealed to have been mislabeled (something Ranger Retrocenter discovered and intricately pointed out before the auction started). As of January 30, 16 of the listed lots — including those involving that White Ranger suit — are marked as not sold.

(At one point, dozens of additional lots — including the Cosmic Blaster — were also marked as not sold; a spokesperson for Heritage Auction said that was “a simple error” and those lots again reflect their sold status.)

I’m not surprised that items from a show with as unique and meaningful a history as Power Rangers fetched so much dough, but I’m impressed that so many weren’t from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, the first and most widely known iteration of the show. Its three seasons and the 30th anniversary special, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always, did account for nearly 20 percent of the auction’s realized total, $3,310,9294. Four of the top 10 items were from the original series: the Green Ranger hero suit ($30,000), the Thunder Megazord hero helmet ($27,500), the Yellow Ranger hero suit ($23,7500) and the Pink Ranger Hero suit ($22,500). One other in the top 10, a Dragon Dagger ($23,750) was used in Once & Always.

The Heritage Auctions event was the latest testament to the impact the franchise has had over three decades: every piece of sweaty spandex, decaying foam rubber and cracked resin has countless, irreplaceable memories attached to it. And, to at least a few folks, the price to preserve them was worth thousands of dollars.

That certainly was true of Bidder 102, an anonymous buyer who attended the live auction and walked away with 31 lots for $176,250.00 before shipping. Bidder 102 took to Twitter after the auction to semi-identify their self and interact with other fans. They revealed that their favorite Ranger is Shadow Ranger from Power Rangers S.P.D, which was perhaps deducible based on four of their purchased lots being related to Anubis “Doggie” Cruger and his Krybot-slaying morphed form. A lot containing Cruger’s animatronic head (hand-made by executive producer Greg Aronowitz), two action costumes and various accessories was Bidder 102’s single largest purchase, finishing at $18,750.

Bidder 1025 has said they’ll display all their purchases with appropriate care and handling, and has suggested they may put together a photo book documenting those purchases. As of early December, though, they were still waiting to have their haul in-hand.

“Many of the items I purchased at the auction have special shipping needs, and from what I can tell those costs are still being calculated,” Bidder 102 wrote on Dec. 3. “Stay tuned!”

Pre-order "Morphenomenal"

Museum haul

The anonymous curator behind The Morphin Museum, a fan-led, free digital archive showcasing various artifacts from and related to Power Rangers, also went into the auction planning to spend a hefty sum. By auction’s end, they won 10 lots for a sum of $76,437.

“The remedy to buyer's remorse is relatively simple; you sell! But there's no guarantee any of these items will ever be seen again if they weren't saved during this auction, so that was also a major factor for us to spend up front,” The Morphin Museum (TMM) wrote in an email interview. “Suffice to say, we maxed out our budget and then some! But we laid the groundwork to do so responsibly.”

TMM planned methodically beyond assuring they wouldn’t go into debt for Power Rangers memorabilia. As much as they’d like to have acquired some specific Ranger suits with unique histories — like Time Force Pink and Ninja Storm Yellow — they wanted to primarily focus on lots with items specific to Power Rangers rather than those that shared history with Super Sentai. They also hoped to obtain items that had not been made widely available as source material to fandom propmakers and costumers.

“These treasures all belong to the fandom as far as we're concerned, and we want them to live on via faithful recreations and 3D scanning where possible; which we eagerly plan to collaborate with fandom creators on,” TMM said. “We originally hoped to secure at least one key prop or costume per season. But once we saw the fervor around the auction, we knew there was no way to accomplish that within our budget and sizable wish list; so we narrowed our selects by balancing our perceived quality or significance and a tinge of personal preference with the ultimate goal of saving as much as we could.”

TMM’s priciest haul was a lot that included the Black Ranger hero costume worn by Javi Garcia (played by Chance Perez) in Power Rangers Cosmic Fury. Its $20,000 sale price was the highest among Cosmic Fury lots after the Cosmic Blaster and ranked11th overall in the entire auction (one spot in front of the Cruger lot purchased by Bidder 102).

They began receiving their items in late January. Currently, TMM’s plan is to freely exhibit their items through photography and other documentation, as they do with the thousands of other items in their collection. Despite their digital-only footprint, preservation efforts for every item in TMM’s collection are as meticulous as those made by most physical museums. Their artifacts are catalogued and stored in a temperature-controlled and moisture-free environment with no direct sunlight, and packaged using acid-free paper, silica gel and other protectives as demanded.

This auction was “bittersweet,” but TMM’s curator, who’s based in Los Angeles, understands the reality of show business.

“It's devastating to see this beloved history split up and sold off to the highest bidder, especially to have only been able to save 1.5% of the lots — but that's Hollywood, and it's standard for any production,” TMM said. “We were at least thankful fans had a chance to preserve a big chunk of it, and to have met some new faces in the process. There was far more historical value and volume in this auction vs. ABC/Disney's 2003 liquidation, so despite New Zealand ultimately facing the same fated catastrophic woodchipper liquidation Disney exercised in Valencia circa 2003, it could have been much worse. We're lucky Hasbro needed that auction money as badly as they did!

“This auction was also an extremely rare opportunity to save history from the last 20 years of the franchise. Since the first decade of production was in and around Los Angeles, that's primarily what existing collector's inventory has amounted to; very few artifacts from New Zealand made it back to the states up until now. So, that was a small blessing too.”

Smaller prices, same impact

Of course, not every buyer was an anonymous, deep-pocketed stranger or an organization dedicated to preserving Power Rangers history. The vast majority of auction lots seemingly were won by fans who just wanted a small piece — any piece — of a show they love. I reached out to several of them via Facebook.

Seamus Fields collects toys and other memorabilia, but has a particular affinity for cars and, understandably, Power Rangers Turbo. He won a Turbo Yellow Ranger helmet in the auction.

“I probably have the largest Turbo toy collection in the U.S.,” Fields said. “I only have a handful of pieces I’m missing and I have every U.S. toy released, most are sealed, all are 100% complete.” He said he’s friends with Blake Foster, who portrayed Justin in Turbo, and really wanted a Blue Ranger auction but its price exceeded his pre-auction budget ($2,000). “I’m a mechanic and pretty good with wiring. I plan on getting the lights working off a external switch and both actresses’ auto(graphs) on it and get a custom box built for display.”

Adam Ramusiewicz also entered bidding with a $2,000 budget but was willing to exceed that up to $5,000 for a few prized items that he ultimately didn’t get (the Astro Megazord model was one of them). He walked away with the last item on his wish list, a Zentinel Soldier Hero Sword from Cosmic Fury, for $1,750.

“I thought it looked pretty awesome and it was still in my budget range,” Ramusiewicz said. “It’s also related to (Lord) Zedd, whom I’ve always enjoyed as a villain. My brother wrote a metal EP about Zedd as well, so I have a soft spot. On top of all that, a gracious friend let me watch the first few episodes of Cosmic Fury prior to its debut. That was a very cool and special moment for me and this sword reminds me of that plus the aforementioned reasons. It seemed kismet!”

Prior to the auction, Nicholis McLaughlin wanted any Green Ranger helmet. While he wasn’t able to get the helmet worn by Tommy Oliver, his favorite character, he managed to snag a Samurai Green Ranger helmet as part of a lot containing it and other accessories for that ranger’s Mega Mode featured in Super Samurai ($2,500). McLaughlin noted that it does have an off-screen tie to Tommy: while filming for Super Megaforce’s “The Legendary Battle,” Jason David Frank and Hector David Jr., who portrayed Mike the Green Ranger in Samurai, took a famous behind-the-scenes photo in which Frank “passed” the Dragon Shield onto Mike.

My favorite individual story related to the auction is that of Olli Zane, known as “The Sentinel Knight Guy” in fandom circles because of his love for the character from Power Rangers Operation Overdrive. He won the Sentinel Knight Hero Costume lot for $5,000 — a little less than he budgeted for it. He intends to get a dedicated cabinet, outfitted with lights, to showcase the latest addition to an insanely impressive Sentinel Knight collection that features items in multiple languages and even bootlegs inspired by the sword-based hero.

“I've always had an admiration towards more armored characters, such as Ninjor and even more typical Ranger characters like Shadow Ranger, but Sentinel Knight resonated with me in such an awesome way,” Zane said. “… As a Power Rangers fan this meant a lot to me, because it gave me a chance to obtain something which means the world to me, as Power Rangers has been there for a getaway since day one.”