BACK TO THE FUTURE MERCHANDISE WORTH OWNING

My closet has a box in it labeled BTTF and I am not proud of what is inside. Some of it was money well spent. Some of it was me at 2 AM on eBay convincing myself that a blurry Funko with a weird paint smear was a rare chase variant. Reader, it was not a rare chase variant. It was a fake from a factory in Guangdong that has been pumping out counterfeits since roughly 2018.

I have spent more than a decade collecting Back to the Future stuff, and I have made basically every mistake a person can make. Bought fakes. Overpaid for reprints. Sold a real Drew Struzan print because I thought it was a reproduction. I am here so you do not do the same thing. This is my honest take on what BTTF merchandise is actually worth owning, what is overpriced nostalgia bait, and how to spot the scams that will drain your wallet if you let them.

Let's get into it.

The Drew Struzan Posters Are The Holy Grail

If you only own one piece of Back to the Future merchandise for the rest of your life, make it an original Drew Struzan theatrical poster. I am not kidding. Everything else in this hobby is downstream of these posters.

Drew Struzan is the illustrator who painted most of the iconic movie posters of the 80s and 90s. Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Hook, The Thing, The Goonies, and yes, all three Back to the Future films. His Back to the Future Part II poster with Marty and Doc standing back to back, pointing in opposite directions, is one of the most recognizable movie images ever made. The original Part I one sheet, with Marty stepping out of the DeLorean and looking at his watch, is maybe the single most iconic back to the future poster in existence.

Here is where it gets tricky. Original theatrical one sheets from 1985, 1989, and 1990 exist in two main flavors. You have single sided posters, which were the standard for most theaters, and you have double sided posters, which came later and are generally worth more because they were lit from behind in bus stop style displays. For Back to the Future Part I you want a 1985 original. Part II and III releases had multiple advance posters and regular release posters, and the advance versions can be worth significantly more.

A real, uncirculated, rolled original Part I one sheet runs anywhere from 300 to 900 dollars depending on condition. Folded versions, which is how posters were actually shipped to theaters back then, are cheaper, usually 150 to 400. If you see one listed for 50 dollars on Etsy, it is a reprint. Full stop. No exceptions. The market knows what these are worth and nobody is unknowingly selling a real one for fifty bucks.

How to spot a fake back to the future movie poster. The easy check is the paper. Original 80s one sheets were printed on a specific matte stock that feels slightly textured when you touch it. Reprints are almost always on modern glossy photo paper or thin magazine stock. The second check is the border. Real theatrical posters have a specific border margin, and the printing info on the bottom should include the NSS number, which is a National Screen Service identifier unique to each film. The Part I NSS number is 850089. If that number is missing or wrong, walk away.

I got burned on a Part II poster early on. Paid 250 dollars for what I thought was a 1989 original and it turned out to be a commercial reproduction sold by a licensed merch company in 1995. Looked identical from a photo. In person, the paper was wrong, the NSS info was missing, and the color saturation was way too punchy. Lesson learned. Always get in person photos of the back and the borders before pulling the trigger.

Mondo Prints Are The Modern Collector's Move

If original theatrical posters are out of your budget, Mondo is where you go. Mondo is a screen printing company in Austin that has been doing licensed movie poster reinterpretations since about 2010. They do limited runs, usually 200 to 400 copies, signed and numbered by the artist. Their Back to the Future prints are some of the most sought after in the whole catalog.

The Laurent Durieux Part I print from 2013 is the white whale. It was a regular edition of 385 and a variant of 150, original sale price was 50 dollars for the regular, and today a good condition variant sells for 1,500 to 2,500 depending on condition. The regular edition is 500 to 800. People who bought these at release made more money per hour than most hedge funds.

Other Mondo BTTF prints to know. Tyler Stout did a Part I that sold out instantly. Kevin Tong did a Part II with a beautiful cityscape Hill Valley vibe. There have been timed editions, AP artist proof variants, and foil variants. The foils are usually the most valuable if you can find them in good shape.

Buy Mondo through StashGallery, eBay, or direct auction sites rather than Facebook groups. The Facebook print collecting world is full of people who bend corners, store prints in attics, and then sell them as mint. Always ask for photos of all four corners and the surface under raking light to check for dings, dents, and fade.

The Casio CA-50 Watch Reissue Is The Easy Recommendation

Doc Brown wears a Casio CA-53W calculator watch in the films. This is one of those pieces of 80s tech that is both genuinely useful and ridiculously iconic. Casio reissued it officially in 2021 as the CA-53WF, and for the 40th anniversary in 2025 they did a special limited run boxed edition with a Flux Capacitor themed packaging and a mini art card. I own one. It costs 30 dollars. It is one of the best merchandise purchases I have ever made.

Here is the thing about the Casio. You wear it. It is a real calculator watch that tells real time, runs a real calculator, has a real stopwatch. It is not a shelf trinket. Every time I look down at my wrist I am reminded that I am Doc Brown. That is worth thirty bucks to me.

The anniversary boxed edition is already going for 80 to 120 dollars on the secondhand market because they sold out in six minutes. But you do not need the anniversary box. The regular CA-53WF is still in production, still 30 bucks, and it is the same watch. Just buy that one.

LEGO Creator Expert DeLorean Is Legitimately Great

The LEGO Creator Expert 10300 DeLorean Time Machine released in 2022 and is the best licensed DeLorean product ever made. 1,872 pieces, builds into three variants, the 1985 movie version, the Part II hover mode, and the Part III railroad wheels version. Retail was 170 dollars, which for an 1,800 piece adult LEGO set is completely reasonable.

The set retired in 2024. Current market price on new sealed boxes is about 250 to 350 dollars. If you built it and kept the box, you are in good shape. If you built it without the box, the set itself is still worth about 180 to 220 on Bricklink parted out.

Is it worth buying now at 300 dollars? Honestly yes, if you have the money. It is a great build, genuinely fun to do over a weekend, and all three configurations look fantastic. The Part III railroad wheels are the best part. Nobody ever builds the hover mode and leaves it, everyone builds the movie version, but the railroad wheels look so good on a shelf it is not even close.

Skip the smaller LEGO Dimensions Back to the Future pack. It is tiny, was made for a dead toys to life game, and the DeLorean in that kit is barely recognizable. Unless you already own Dimensions and want to play, pass.

Funko Pops: The Honest Truth

Okay, Funko. I am going to be honest with you. Most Funko Pops are garbage investments and they are designed to exploit the exact psychology that made you click this article. They are cheap plastic, the paint apps are inconsistent, and the company has flooded the market so hard that basically nothing holds value anymore.

That said, there are specific Back to the Future Pops worth owning if you actually like them as display pieces, which is all any of these should ever be.

Worth owning. The original 2015 Marty McFly with guitar, which was a Toy Tokyo exclusive. This one actually has some value, running about 60 to 100 dollars loose and 150 plus in box. The glow in the dark Hoverboard Marty from SDCC 2015 is genuinely rare and goes for 200 to 400.

Skip. Literally every regular wave BTTF Pop from the last five years. They are 12 dollars at Target, they will be 12 dollars forever, and they have no meaningful collector value. If you like the way they look, buy one, put it on your shelf, enjoy it. Do not buy it thinking it is an investment.

The scam to watch out for. Fake SDCC exclusives are everywhere on eBay. A real SDCC 2015 Glow Hoverboard Marty has a specific sticker, a specific box print date, and a specific number of stickers on the box. If someone is selling one for 80 dollars, it is fake. Real ones do not sell below 200 ever.

Bobbleheads. Hate them. Burn them. Move on.

Hoverboard Replicas Range From Amazing To Total Trash

There are three kinds of Back to the Future hoverboard replica you can buy. Understanding which one you are looking at matters a lot.

The Matty Collector Mattel Hoverboard, released in 2012 and again in 2015, is a 1:1 scale licensed replica. It looks basically identical to the screen used prop. It is hollow plastic, not a rideable product. Original 2012 version runs 400 to 700 today. The 2015 reissue with lights and sound is 250 to 400.

Off brand eBay hoverboard replicas. Skip all of these. They are resin casts from the Mattel version, usually with bad paint, wrong decals, and foam pads that fall apart. You will spend 150 dollars and hate it.

Rideable hoverboards that call themselves Back to the Future inspired. These are just regular electric hoverboards with pink stickers slapped on them. They are fine as electric hoverboards but they are not merch. Do not pretend they are collectibles.

If you want a real hoverboard for display, save up for a Mattel one. If you cannot find a Mattel one, do not settle for a knockoff. The knockoffs look bad and they will disappoint you every time you look at them.

The Vinyl Soundtrack Is Worth Every Penny

Alan Silvestri's Back to the Future score is one of the best film scores ever composed. The main theme is in my top five of all time, I will fight anyone about it. For years the complete score was only available on an obscure 2009 Intrada CD release that ran 35 dollars and sold out immediately.

In 2020, Mondo released a double LP vinyl pressing of the complete Part I score. Splatter vinyl, beautiful gatefold artwork, liner notes, the whole package. Original retail was 35 dollars. It sold out in about an hour. Current market price is 150 to 250.

Part II and Part III got their own double LP vinyl releases in 2022 and 2023. Both are still findable under 100 dollars if you hunt. Part III is the cheapest because people sleep on it, but it might be my favorite score of the three. The train sequence music is untouchable.

If you have a record player, these are the easiest buy of everything on this list. The music is genuinely incredible, the packaging is gorgeous, and unlike a poster they do not take up wall space.

The Scams To Watch Out For

Fake autographs. The Christopher Lloyd and Michael J Fox autograph market is flooded with fakes. Real ones come with COA from a reputable third party authenticator like JSA or PSA. Anything else is probably fake, or at minimum cannot be verified. The market for autopenned or secretarial signatures is also huge, where a real signature was used to create a machine copy. Buy only from sellers who provide hologram matched third party authentication. I have seen people pay 800 dollars for fakes that a dealer would reject in thirty seconds.

Prop reproductions sold as original props. No original DeLorean prop parts exist for sale under 50,000 dollars. If someone is selling a flux capacitor prop for 200 bucks, it is a fan made reproduction. Which is fine if you know that is what you are buying, but some sellers lie about it.

Pin sets and enamel pins. The Back to the Future pin market is overrun with unlicensed bootleg pins that look identical to licensed ones. Loungefly and Disney do official BTTF pins occasionally, everything else is a gamble. If you care about licensed merch, stick to named brands.

My Honest Recommendation For A Starter Collection

If you are building a BTTF collection from zero and you have about 500 dollars to spend, here is what I would actually do.

Buy the Casio CA-53WF for 30 dollars and wear it every day. Buy the Mondo Part I vinyl soundtrack for about 120 dollars on the secondhand market. Buy a folded original Part I one sheet in good condition for 200 dollars if you can find one, or a Mondo Kevin Tong Part II print if the original is out of reach. And save the last 150 for a LEGO DeLorean when you see one pop up under 300.

That collection is real, meaningful, and every piece has lasting value. It also gives you music to listen to, a watch to wear, art for your wall, and a toy to build with your kid. That is what good merch looks like. Not a shelf full of identical plastic Funko heads.

If you want to keep reading about the trilogy, my /blog/back-to-the-future-40th-anniversary recap covers everything that happened during the anniversary year, including the Casio reissue and the musical tour.

Happy collecting. And if you see a 50 dollar original Struzan poster on Etsy, it is not real. I promise.