Heroes in a half shell: Canadian man collects Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles memorabilia
When Dave Fawcett (Canada) was a child, he’d excitedly run to open his birthday or holiday presents, ripping off the packaging to hopefully reveal the faces of his heroes – the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
These four anthropomorphic turtles – named Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo, after the Italian Renaissance artists – followed Dave everywhere, as he eagerly read their comic books, watched their TV series, and played their video games, where the turtles would fight crime (and eat lots of pizza) in New York City with the help of their rat sensei Splinter.
And now, decades after Dave first started collecting the turtle-themed merchandise, he still has a deep love for the combative cartoons – so much so that he obtained the Guinness World Records title on 8 February for the largest collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles memorabilia in the world.
Spanning from figurines to posters, comic books to bedding, Dave has 2,195 items in his collection, a fact which he describes as: “TURTLE POWER”.
Though his love for the teenaged reptilia officially started in 1988, when he’d begged his parents to host turtle-themed birthday parties, Dave said he really started building his collection in the early 2000s.
“After the original line was done, and the 2002 - 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series (TMNT) was about to come out, I dug out my old TMNT toys, and decided I was going to turn my love for TMNT into something spectacular,” he said. “And here we are!”
Covering the walls of his home in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada are thousands of pieces of carefully curated memorabilia, such as: comic books and branded lunchboxes, turtle-shell backpacks and sleeping bags, and clothing and figurines.
Movie posters and hand-drawn artwork are plastered on to every surface, while an entire corner of his man cave (or “Turtle’s Lair”, as he calls it) is dedicated to his Funko Pops and assorted action figures. He even has a baseball cap that says “The TMNT Collector” in the comic’s font!
However, Dave’s favourite pieces in his collection are ones with sentimental value – the first item in his TMNT collection, a soft head Donatello purchased by his mother as a Christmas present in 1988, and a 1991 “Movie Star Mikey” bought by his late Grampy Jack.
Raphael is Dave’s favourite Turtle (but don’t tell the others!)
And despite the size of his collection, he loves adding new pieces to the midst, saying: “I love the thrill of the hunt and discovering new little pieces of TMNT merch I didn’t know existed, or finding that super rare accessory I have been missing all these years.”
He told the Hamilton Spectator that his rarest find is Hot Spot, a firefighting Dalmatian and friend of the gang, that was tucked in a $4.99 bag of Paw Patrol toys at Value Village.
“My back would be sore from sitting there for 40 minutes, but if I found that one little accessory, it was worth it,” he said.
The Hot Spot toy
Now, Dave has catapulted his love for the Turtles into a successful social media presence, and he is regularly invited to Comic Cons to show off his memorabilia to a community of like-minded collectors.
“Setting this record means the world to me, as it has been a lifelong passion and I want to share my collection with the world,” said Dave.
“Thank you very much for the opportunity to be a part of TMNT history and to show the world TURTLE POWER!”
Congratulations, Dave – you are Officially Amazing!