Aardman puts 220-plus puppets under the hammer for 50th anniversary

Animation fans have a rare chance to take home a piece of British film history, as Aardman opens its archive for an auction of more than 220 puppets, props and artworks marking the studio's 50th anniversary.

Bidding began on September 4 and runs to a live global auction on September 24, 2026, hosted by the auction house Propstore at its gallery in London Bridge. Every lot carries an opening bid of £100, though no estimates have been issued for any item.

"Typically we would put an estimate on them, but something like this has never been done before," said Sian Taylor, auction manager at Propstore. "To have a collection this incredible directly from Aardman, there's nothing comparable."

The catalogue spans nearly every production in the Bristol studio's half-century. Leading the sale are screen-matched stop-motion figures of Wallace, Gromit and the villainous Feathers McGraw — complete with his red glove disguise — from the 2024 film Vengeance Most Fowl.

Also on offer is a Shaun the Sheep puppet from the forthcoming 2026 feature Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, alongside characters from Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists and Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon. Beyond the puppets, the lots include design sketches, storyboards and hand-painted character artwork by Nick Park, the creator of Wallace and Gromit.

Will Becher, a director and animator who joined Aardman in 1998 to work on Chicken Run, said the rarity of individual figures varies sharply. Feature productions typically build 12 to 15 multiples of a character so that animators can work in parallel — without them, he noted, a single feature could take an animator a decade. But certain characters exist in far smaller numbers.

"This Wallace is incredibly unique, and I think that's possibly why he's stood next to me now, because there is only one of him," Becher said, adding that while roughly ten versions of some puppets may exist worldwide, special-costume figures are one of a kind.

He described the puppets as "highly engineered instruments", robust enough to be posed and held in position, yet vulnerable: a fall can squash a clay face and mean two hours of resculpting and cleaning. Costumes are built to look like clay but are often made of silicone, which allows for varied colours and textures while being quicker to work with.

Becher also pointed to the wordless appeal of Shaun the Sheep, whose stories he said are enjoyed in more than 180 countries.

Taylor said the catalogue is open for bids ahead of the live sale, which viewers can watch as auctioneers move through the lots. "We're expecting the activity to have some fireworks," she said.

Proceeds from the sale will be reinvested in training a new generation of animators.