Today, while many people are worrying over the price of groceries, others are willing to spend a week’s worth of groceries on a single box of cereal.

Even one that is stale and decades old.

For 36 years, a colorful Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cereal box has stood on a shelf in my home, though I never considered consuming it for breakfast.

A few days ago, it vanished, shipped to a stranger in Texas who eagerly forked over $150 to purchase this box of cereal I bought at Price Choppers in 1989 for $1.09.

Cowabunga!

Ralston, who gained fame for their whole wheat Chex mix, went into pairing pop culture into your morning routine

I am a serial collector who counts cereal boxes among my many vintage collectibles.

In the 1980s, while other women I knew were collecting Homer Laughlin Fiestaware bowls, I was busy collecting the cereal that was served in them.

I even joked that cereal boxes were my 401 (k).

For decades, I bought cereal boxes that intersected with other popular collectible categories.

There was something so appealing about the character-driven Crayola-colored cardboard cereal boxes and the stories they tell about our culture. The pop culture stars of the ’80s and ’90s got their own cereal, including Cabbage Patch Dolls, Urkel, and Pac-Man.

Move over, Captain Crunch, there were new kids on the block, though that infamous boy band was one of the few that never got their own cereal. Mr. T now competed for supermarket shelf space with Tony the Tiger.

Walking down the long cereal aisle in the fluorescent light of the supermarket, I gleefully filled my shopping cart, pulling cereal boxes from shelves that echoed blockbuster movies I had just watched in the local triplex- E.T., Addams Family, and Gremlins.

Cereal companies capitalized ingeniously on the success of movies, TV shows, toys, and fads, turning them into a breakfast staple that reinforced entertainment brands with morning routines.

It was like a bit of snap, crackle, and pop culture right there in your cereal bowl.

As the collectible boon of the ’90s took off and more people became aware of the potential value of cereal boxes, they began stashing them away.

A Savior and a Saver

Except for the cereal boxes, my collecting has never been consciously driven by value, though I was aware of the market value of my items.

It is ephemera, the stuff of everyday life that always interests me. Those things that are disposable, briefly used but produced to be discarded, serve as a fascinating glimpse into history and culture.

Along with the thousands of magazines and newspapers spanning eight decades, my home is filled with vintage cards, leaflets, booklets, postcards, catalogs, ticket stubs, receipts, used checks, matchbooks, tickets, notes, letters, theatre programs, pamphlets, workbooks, and hand-outs, to name just a few.

And cereal boxes, whose innate disposable nature is one of the things that attracts collectors.

It is a niche hobby, and I am not alone.

Letting Go of the Past, Even if the Past Won’t Let Go of Me

There is brisk business online in the buying and selling of these items.

I should have been feeling happy at the recent sale of the Ninja Turtles and the good return on my meager investment.

But I was oddly melancholy.

I don’t regret that I didn’t send away for the cool free Mutant Ninja  Turtle poster advertised on the back of the box that promised to “Radicalize Your Room Dudes!” I have the 75 cents for postage and handling, along with the box top and coupon required, but sadly, the offer expired in April 1990.

Of course, everything about this item is all long past its expiration date, including its stale contents of pre-sweetened cereal composed of crunchy sweetened “Ninja Nets” with “Ninja Turtle Marshmallows.

But to my surprise, my attachment to it had not expired.

As with many of my belongings, I had put the cereal box up for sale on eBay a few years ago in “The Great Huntington Panic and Purge of 2020” when I lost my spacious home to foreclosure. Before this, I had never sold any of my collectibles. The emotional pull I felt having them with me was incalculable

With an uncertain future both financially and where I would live, I panicked.

Looking around at all that I had accumulated, I wondered if I would ever have space for it all.  I went into survival mode. By selling some of my collectibles and downsizing, I could address both issues looming ahead of me -money and space.

Sentimentality had to be pushed aside as I combed through hundreds of boxes methodically cataloging, photographing, and writing catchy descriptions to sell at auction.

I was never certain how quickly I would have to leave my house, so the daily level of anxiety and uncertainty was palpable. It seemed no object was safe from the fear of the unknown, which gripped me, and it wasn’t long before beloved childhood toys got swept up in the web of purging and selling.

My teddy bear Bluey, a stuffed animal lovingly purchased at F. A. O. Schwartz in 1956 by my great Aunts, a toy whose tag proclaimed it had been commissioned by the Queen Mother of England, would now suffer the indignity of being put on the auction block, scrutinized, and sold to the highest bidder.

Fortunately, I ended up moving to a new home that seemed built for my collectibles. That particular worry could be tabled.

Heroes in a Half Shell

I had nearly forgotten about the Ninja Turtles Cereal Box until a week ago, when a buyer who made several low offers finally came back with the full asking price. But something gnawed at me. I didn’t want to part with it.

Like collectors of other pop culture paraphernalia, cereal box fans are generally fueled by nostalgia.

The thing of it is, I have little nostalgia when it comes to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

It wasn’t part of my own childhood, nor did I have children who might have been obsessed with this late 1980s trend, which would render it sentimental.  Truthfully, I am not even sure I could differentiate between Raphael and Donatello.

It was always my intention to sell it.

At some point.

But the loss of my finances pushed my hand in ways I hadn’t anticipated. To sell out of fear, not choice.

The selling of this triggered the reminder of the why I was selling. The not-so-distant memories of living with loss and insecurity during a challenging time bubbled up, resurfacing with the selling of this item.

Though I landed on my feet, for now, I understand the fears many are feeling in this uncertain time.

As I tenderly wrapped the Turtles cereal box in bubble wrap to mail it, I began thinking of the millions of Americans who worry if they will be able to feed their own children breakfast in the next few weeks. To buy groceries.

Suddenly, the sale of this box made sense. In a small way, I could help with the food insecurity in my own community by donating the profit from this old cereal box to a food bank to put food in a hungry child’s stomach. 

Who knew the Ninja Turtles would live up to their name as Heroes in a Half Shell?

That’s totally tubular.

© Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream, 2025. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Sally Edelstein and Envisioning The American Dream