More than 200 pieces from the archive of Aardman Animations went under the hammer in London on Thursday, with the profits earmarked for training the next generation of stop-motion animators.
The sale was run by the memorabilia auction house Propstore and marked the 50th anniversary of the Bristol studio. Every lot started at £100, and bidding opened at teatime in London.
Lot 216 was Wallace, in his traditional knitted green tank top, red tie and brown trousers, from the 2024 film Vengeance Most Fowl. The catalogue described him as in "smashing condition" and set out his construction in some detail: "Wallace's head is moulded from clay; while his body is made of silicone to facilitate smooth repositioning by the animators."
It went on: "He has a skeleton, just like every salt-of-the-earth lad, it's just that his happens to be made of metal. His teeth, shirt collar, tie, pen, and pencil are fast-cast resin and his eyes are plastic." The lot sold for £50,400.
A puppet of Gromit on all fours from the same film, "crafted over a fully jointed internal metal armature, allowing him to be held in his most natural pose", fetched £31,500.
Lot 219 was Feathers McGraw, Wallace and Gromit's nemesis, disguised as a nun. The catalogue reminded bidders of the line the disguise produced: "Feathers McGraw? Don't be ridiculous. That's just an innocent nun, out for a pleasure cruise." It sold for more than £30,000.
A second Feathers puppet, wearing the red rubber glove that allows the penguin to pass as a chicken, did better still, selling for almost £57,000.
The catalogue was clear that the lots were not toys but pieces of art requiring special packaging, shipping and careful handling. "Please also be aware that exposure to extreme temperatures may cause damage," it said.
Bidders also went after the studio's early work. Clay puppets of Morph and his companion Chas, made from plasticine by Aardman co-founder Peter Lord and sold with handwritten care instructions, were among the first lots of the day and went for £3,780. Morph first appeared in 1977 as part of Take Hart.
Elsewhere in the sale, storyboards from Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers signed by Nick Park sold for almost £4,000, and a nine-centimetre clay rabbit that appeared in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit for almost £10,000. Lunch for six with Peter Lord in Bristol went for more than £11,000, and a stop-motion masterclass with an Aardman animator for just over £20,000.
At the other end, lot 89 was a set of dry stone walls and a gate from the Shaun the Sheep television series, sold with "adhesive remnants from where the pieces were secured to the set". It made £567.
Ngaio Harding-Hill, Aardman's director of attractions, live experiences and archive, called the sale an "unprecedented opportunity" to own part of the studio's history. "Proceeds from the auction will be invested in talent development initiatives across Aardman, including bursaries at our world-class training facility, the Aardman Academy, meaning every sale is contributing to nurturing the next generation of animation talent," she said.
Read down the results in order, though, and something else has been produced: a complete and independently arrived at price list for a cast of characters. The room was not asked to rank them. It ranked them anyway.
The character the catalogue calls a nemesis, the one who goes about in a rubber glove pretending to be a chicken, is worth almost £57,000. The inventor is worth £50,400. The dog is worth £31,500, which places him fourth in a four-character drama, behind both of the disguises worn by the bird he is up against.
The pattern holds as the sale goes back in time. Morph and Chas, the two characters with whom the studio began, made £3,780 between them, less than half what a nine-centimetre clay rabbit managed on its own. Value rises with villainy and falls with seniority, and a masterclass with a living animator now sits above every founding character in the archive.
At £567, the dry stone wall was the cheapest thing named in the results. It has never done anything wrong.