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Historic DC Comics Collection Surpasses $5.26 Million at Auction
Posted on October 29, 2024 by Neil Cole
Nearly 1,800 bidders worldwide collected every one of the 489 comics and original works of art offered by Heritage Auctions in "The Christine Farrell Complete DC Collection: Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction" which took place October 25th & 26th and surpassed all expectations by realizing $5,261,617 when it ended Saturday afternoon. And many of those historic books set auction records, which comes as no surprise to Heritage Auctions Vice President Lon Allen.
"Christine's journey to gather these iconic comics has gifted us not only a legendary collection but also a moment to celebrate the rich legacy of comic history," Allen says. "Watching so many of her pieces find new homes was truly special, and we're grateful to Christine for her vision and thrilled by the extraordinary excitement from collectors who recognize just how invaluable these pieces are. This auction and those to follow will be remembered for years to come."
Heritage will present books from Farrell's collection into the summer of 2025.
This initial auction's top lot comes as no surprise: a trimmed and restored CGC Apparent Fine 6.0 copy of 1938's Action Comics No. 1, the most important comic ever published that introduced a Superman awaiting his big-screen return in Gunn's reintroduction to the mythic Man of Steel. There are but 81 copies of Superman's debut in CGC's population report, among them 36 restored copies. It's valuable and historic no matter the condition, and sold for $324,000.
Farrell's copy of Flash Comics No. 1, graded CGC Very Good/Fine 5.0, placed second in this momentous auction, realizing $174,000 - the second-highest amount for which this Golden Age gem has sold at auction. And a copy of More Fun Comics No. 52 graded CGC Fine 6.0, featuring the debut of the Spectre, realized $132,000, second only to the CGC Very Fine+ 8.5 copy sold at Heritage in December 2022.
Not far behind DC's original speedster was a far lesser-known and far harder-to-find book that smashed its previous auction record: a CGC Near Mint+ 9.6 copy of 1938's New Adventure Comics No. 27 that bears the vaunted Mile High Pedigree. The cover, by Creig Flessel, makes this a must-have among collectors, as he was among the earliest DC illustrators and is best known for drawing the Sandman. But the comic's interior renders it historic: Readers who opened the book got their first look at Superman, seen in a black-and-white ad for Action Comics No. 1, which shared a publication date with New Adventure Comics No. 27, June 1938.
A bidding war over this trophy resulted in a record price of $168,000, exactly 10 times more than the comic book's previous high-water mark.
Farrell's collection was rife with such rarities because of her enduring determination to chase down every last DC title. Chief among them was one of nine known copies of Double Action Comics No. 2, which is such a rare book there has long been some disagreement about whether it was one of a handful of ashcan copies made "purely for trademark and copyright registration" (as DC noted in its 75th-anniversary history The Art of Modern Mythmaking) or a limited-distribution test product made to see whether customers would buy black-and-white reprints of other comics. Farrell didn't care either way: The book, deemed an ultimate 10 on the Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books' Scarcity Index, was a DC title, so it had to be in her collection, no matter how long it took to track it down.
Her fortitude was another collector's good fortune: Farrell's beloved CGC Fine/Very Fine 7.0 copy of Double Action Comics No. 2 found a new caretaker Friday when it realized an auction record $132,000. Heritage hadn't offered a copy since 2008, when it realized $16,730.
Two early copies of Action Comics also got in on the record-setting action Friday, when issues No. 8 and No. 23 each realized $84,000.
Action Comics No. 8 is graded CGC Very Fine 8.0 and was the first high-graded copy Heritage has ever offered during its long history as the world's premier comic book and comic art auction house. Superman might have been the most famous superhero on the planet, but he was not yet Action Comics' perennial cover boy in the issue that introduced his super-hearing.
Action Comics No. 23, here also graded CGC Very Fine 8.0, ranks among the title's most significant issues, as it introduced Lex Luthor (a murderous would-be "supreme master of the world" trying to start a world war, with a full head of red hair, and not yet identified by his first name). Here, too, is the first time readers heard about The Daily Planet, previously known in the comic books as The Daily Star.
Another landmark book from Farrell's assemblage realized a record-setting $84,000: the Mile High Pedigree copy of New Adventure Comics No. 25 graded CGC Very Fine/Near Mint 9.0. This book rates a "Scarce" 7 on the Photo-Journal Guide to Comic Books' Scarcity Index, yet Farrell wound up with the sole highest-graded copy on the CGC Census, with its nearest contender a CGC Very Good/Fine 5.0. Heritage sold a Very Good 4.0 copy earlier this year - for $2,880!
There were nearly a dozen works of original art in this auction, with at least one new Heritage record among them: Harry G. Peter's unpublished page from the Wonder Woman story "Nuclear, the Magnetic Menace," which dates from the late 1940s. This page, unseen for decades and long thought lost, realized $40,800, a new Heritage high-water mark for the artist who was the first to draw William Moulton Marston's character and is often regarded as the unheralded co-creator of the Princess of Themyscira.
Click here for the complete results from the October 25-26 The Christine Farrell Complete DC Collection: Comics & Comic Art Signature Auction.
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