The WWF Hasbro action figure line ran between the years of 1990 and 1994. WWF (now known as WWE) and Hasbro, the company producing the figures, decided not to extend their working relationship in 94 and therefore, the JusToys Bendem line followed thereafter. This signaled the end of arguably the best wrestling figure line of all time after four glorious years. One thing that's been incredibly hard to piece together is sales numbers from the 90's, as Hasbro didn't ever release this type of data. So, Retrofigure have scoured the internet to figure out the answer to an often asked question; how many WWF Hasbro figures were produced?
The line has experienced a recent renaissance, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. There are numerous reasons for this. One is that collectors spent more time at home digging out their old wrestling figure collections and completists and hobbyists alike had more disposable income to spend on collectibles 25 years+ on. Also, of course the Major Wrestling Figure Podcast contributed to this resurgence in popularity. Its hosts; Bryan Myers and Matt Cardona, inspired thousands of now adult collectors to complete their childhood collections. In my own case, close to 30 years after I stopped having an interest in professional wrestling, I was shocked to learn all about the green cards and the enormous sums of money they can attract on auction sites. Learning that the Ultimate Warrior had a third variant and that the image on the back of the card was not the second release of the Warrior put my head in a spin. I absolutely had to purchase him in 2020, and thus my journey to complete the line recommenced.
Into the 2020’s, a number of documents, pictures, prototypes, test shots and other memorabilia continue to appear, firmly inserting their owners into WWF Hasbro folklore. Pictures of the fabled orange card line including Jeff Jarrett, Doing the Clown, Mo and Mabel and Diesel have been located, as designed by legendary artist Ron Rudat. The orange card images have seen a number of spin off collections created, including Zombie Sailor’s Heels and Faces line.
Lest we forget the WWE Mattel Retro line. This collection remains a source of controversy to this day, as for many the line has not yet lived up to the lofty expectations of the passionate WWF Hasbro collecting community. However, recent waves have shown signs of improvement from Mattel, and the latest wave including Vader, The Undertaker, Jerry the King Lawler and Paul Bearer has a skeptical audience celebrating the quartet for likeness, playability and for releasing a few legendary and familiar faces.
One thing that we can be sure of, is that the generally accepted total number of figures released is 98. This number includes the five tag teams (of which Crush is the only member that was new, with Demolition Smash being a re-release from Series 1) and three mailaway figures including Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker and Bret the Hitman Hart. At retrofigure, we also consider three other figures to be included in the total number as well, bringing us to 101 for MOC figures: the Bret Hart purple heart being an additional one, and re-releases of the existing Razor Ramon and Shawn Michaels on blue card (as opposed to yellow) are also must haves for any mint on card WWF Hasbro collector. We consider the number for loose to therefore be 99 as opposed to 98; as Bret Hart with a purple heart (which may or may not have a slight difference to the Bret Hart mailaway) is different to the pink heart version. This is also another controversial topic, as some collectors insist that Bret’s mail away figure’s hairline is different to the purple heart version of Bret.
On the topic of releases; it is understood that Bret Hart’s purple heart figure was mainly released in North America. The pink heart version, which is seen as the easier to find figure of the two, was supposedly released into Europe and the Rest of the World. This is very clear from our own valuation of these two figures. As a reminder, we collect sales data from sites such as ebay, and use this to perform our calculations. Our Bret Hart pink heart value is estimated to be $314, within a range of $286-$364 depending on quality of the unopened figure, which includes bubble and card condition. The purple heart value will set a buyer back around $371 as of October 2023, with a range of $321-$405 depending on overall condition.
The Dusty Rhodes release in series 2 is one of the most expensive figures from the line, both loose and unopened mint on card are expensive to acquire. Our estimated value for this today is $1438. These rarely come up for sale on public auction sites, a lot of Dusty’s unopened are traded within the community and on Facebook groups. The reason why a Dusty can command such a high fee is that the WWF and Rhodes’ relationship came to an abrupt end shortly after the 1991 Royal Rumble. A number of Dusty’s figures had been produced and already sold, albeit a very limited quantity of them. There is no indication as to the overall number of Dusty’s that were produced. However, we do know that in the United Kingdom, for example, the largest retailers and toy shops such as Argos, Debenham’s etc., did not ever stock the Dusty, and it is understood that these were distributed across the United States.
While the numbers are unclear and are not generally available, we do have a little bit of data to suggest that production numbers tended to decrease over time, starting immediately after the third series of the Hasbro line. This is roughly during the same period that interest in the World Wrestling Federation began to wane, the professional wrestling golden era of the 1980’s came to an end, and at some point the WWF even saw the United Kingdom as a focus and developing market, as WWF’s position in the USA began to saturate in a now busy sports entertainment industry. Rival federations such as the WCW started to take market share. This was one reason for Vince McMahon taking a different direction for the WWE a few years later, as the Founder of WWE commenced a full rename (partially forced by a lawsuit from the WWF - World Widelife Fund) and a repackage of the brand; with the sport now known to us fans as sports entertainment as opposed to pro wrestling.
From the limited data that we have found, it has been discovered that in total, close to 265,000 Jake the Snake Roberts figures in series 1 were produced. Sale numbers are less clear, but Jake happens to be the most produced figure of the first series. The Hulk Hogan figure followed closely behind with a few thousand less, and with roughly the same number produced as the Ultimate Warrior series 1 edition. Hasbro reached optimal output during series 2 of the line, and it will therefore come as no surprise that Rowdy Roddy Piper is by far the most produced figure of the entire collection; with a reported 300,000 total Piper figures produced. Despite Hogan’s enormous popularity, Hasbro opted to produce less and less of the Hogan second edition, third and fourth variants, as it was considered internally at Hasbro that children would likely not want to have multiple copies of Hogan, and the first series of the Hulkster had been mostly sold out as soon as the figure hit the shelves. Roddy Piper’s relatively low value on ebay matches up to these production numbers. We can correlate these figures to our own total sales data for loose figures that can be found on our page Total Loose Sales of WWF Hasbro Figures. As of today, Piper comes in as the 7th most purchased action figure of the entire line. Our findings on Jake being the most produced figure from Series 1 also closely matches up to our data, as seen in the chart, with Jake being the most sold loose figure of the collection based upon two years of sales data.
The only other production numbers we’ve been able to find, is a small snippet for the yellow card series. We know that at least twelve and up to 24 Kamala moon bellies were produced. If you’re not familiar with the moon belly, this is considered the holy grail of WWF Hasbro figure collecting and sums of $10,000+ have been paid for this figure. Due to the enormous interest in the moon belly Kamala (credit to Matt Cardona for the picture on the right hand side), we’ve found data that proves that the star variant, which was the Kamala released to the public, approximated to 150,000 total figures. This is in comparison to the Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon figures that appear to have been over-produced at 215,000; and this may also be the reason why both Shawn and Razor were re-released on a darker blue card later on. Declining sales and leftover production figures that Hasbro needed to be sold on a fresh package.
When it comes to the green cards, we have not been able to find any production data. What we did locate is an interesting thread on the wrestlingfigs.com forum, with a topic regarding the last figure that collectors ever remember purchasing entitled Your Last WWF Hasbro Figures. Of note is that some people remember seeing the green cards in clearance buckets. The line clearly did not sell well. Others don’t ever remember being able to find the figures at all, but it appears that the United Kingdom had a number of these figures for sale. As previously mentioned, the UK had a surge in popularity as the United States’ interest in pro wrestling took a downward turn; a little after Summerslam 1992 hosted at Wembley Stadium in London. It is widely accepted that the orange card series that never saw the light of day was intended to be a UK Exclusive. You can find out more about the orange card line at our Unreleased WWF Hasbro figures page. In an interview with Matt Cardona, Cardona has also said that the only green card he was not able to buy as a child was the 1-2-3 Kid. For whatever reason, Hasbro produced a lot less of the Kid. Perhaps this is because the relationship between WWF and Hasbro ended abruptly at the same time he went to production? We will never know. However, what we do understand is that the Yokozuna re-release, Bart and Billy Gunn, Ludvig Borga, Adam Bomb and Crush (known as evil Crush) command huge sums of money mint on card and loose both. Make sure you pay the right fee, and please use Retrofigure's wealth of data and metrics to help you.
Without doubt amongst the most difficult to find figures within the whole Hasbro line are the mail away figures. Hasbro released Hulk Hogan in a brand new red colour scheme, The Undertaker came with some minor adjustments to his beard and hair colour and finally Bret the Hitman Hart with a purple heart. The three figures were sent to fans in plastic bags inscribed with "MADE IN CHINA". Today, figures still found in their original bag are worth considerably more than loose. In total, 6000 of these specially produced figures were made - 3000 Hulk Hogan mailaways and 3000 Undertaker mailaways. The Bret's, despite all the rumour that there are minor differences in comparison to the original Purple Heart Bret Hart, are exactly the same. Hasbro bagged up the original Bret figure released to North America. Of the Hogan's, Bret's and Taker's, 800 of each were sent to WWF Magazine. The remaining 2200 Taker and Bret's were sent to the WWF, and the last 2200 Hogan's were distributed via Hasbro direct to customers.
Whilst the American / English cards are deemed to be the most valuable in the collection, different markets such as Canada, Argentina, Spain and France had language equivalents released to them. Retrofigure has also been collecting some data on Foreign MOC WWF Hasbro figure sales. There is plenty to break down here, but it will definitely come as a surprise that Koko B Ware is by far the most purchased figure with a Spanish, French, Dual Language release. There isn’t even too much competition for Koko, with the third variant of Ultimate Warrior in second and behind by quite a long way. If we scroll down right to the bottom of the data, it may be interesting to note quite how few foreign cards have been sold (and found) for characters such as Skinner, El Matador and Jim the Anvil Neidhart. We wonder why this data anomaly exists: are these figures hard to find, were the production numbers for international markets less? Why was Koko’s production run quantity in these markets with these languages so high in comparison to Skinner, for example? Texas Tornado also has a relatively high number of foreign card sales in comparison to English, much the same as Koko, and this is certainly an anomaly of sorts.
