Comic auction: A copy of Detective Comics #27 from the Billy Wright Collection at Heritage Auctions in Dallas,Texas, which sold for 10 cents in 1939 and features the debut of Batman, got the top bid at the New York City auction Wednesday. It sold for about $523,000. (AP/Courtesy of Heritage Auctions)
The bulk of a man's childhood comic book collection that included many
of the most prized issues ever published sold at auction Wednesday for about
$3.5 million.
A copy of Detective Comics No. 27, which sold for 10 cents in 1939 and
features the debut of Batman, got the top bid at the New York City auction
Wednesday. It sold for about $523,000, including a buyer's premium, said Lon
Allen, managing director of comics for Heritage Auctions, the Dallas-based
auction house overseeing the sale.
"This really has its place in the history of great comic book
collections," said Allen, who added that the auction was high energy, with
"a bunch of applause at a couple of the top lots."
Action Comics No. 1, a 1938 issue featuring the first appearance of
Superman, sold for about $299,000; Batman No. 1, from 1940, sold for about
$275,000; and Captain America No. 2, a 1941 issue with a frightened Adolf
Hitler on the cover, brought in about $114,000, Allen said.
Among the 345 well-preserved comics bought decades ago by the Virginia
boy with a remarkable knack for picking winners were 44 of The Overstreet Comic
Book Price Guide's top 100 issues from comics' golden age.
"It was amazing seeing what they went for," said Michael
Rorrer, who discovered his late great uncle Billy Wright's collection last year
while cleaning out his late great aunt's house in Martinsville, Va., following
her death.
Opening up a basement closet, Rorrer found the neatly stacked comics
that had belonged to Wright, who died in 1994 at age 66.
"This is just one of those collections that all the guys in the
business think don't exist anymore," Allen said.
Experts say the collection is remarkable not only for the number of
rare books, but also because the comics were kept in such good condition for
half a century by the man who bought them in his childhood.
"The scope of this collection is, from a historian's perspective,
dizzying," said J.C. Vaughn, associate publisher of Overstreet.
Most comics from the golden age - the late 1930s into the 1950s - fell
victim to wartime paper drives, normal wear and tear and mothers throwing them
out, said Vaughn. Of the 200,000 copies of Action Comics No. 1 produced, about
130,000 were sold and the about 70,000 that didn't sell were pulped. Today,
experts believe only about 100 copies are left in the world, he said.
Allen said that 80 of the lesser-valued comics from the collection
will be sold in an online auction Friday that's expected to bring in about
$100,000.
Rorrer, of Oxnard, Calif., got half his great uncle's collection and
his mother took the other half to give to his brother Jonathan in Houston.
Rorrer, 31, said he didn't realize their value until months later, when he
mentioned the collection to a co-worker who mused that it would be quite
something if he had Action Comics No. 1.
"I went home and was looking through some of them, and there it
was," said Rorrer, who then began researching the collection's value in
earnest.
Once Rorrer realized how important the comics were, he called his
mother, Lisa Hernandez, of League City, Texas, who still had the box for his
brother at her house. The two then went through their boxes, checking comic
after comic off the list.
Hernandez said it really hit her how valuable the comics were when she
saw the look on Allen's face when the auction house expert came to her house to
look through the comics.
"It was kind of hard to wrap my head around it," Allen said.
The find was a complete surprise for the family, and it is unclear if
Ruby Wright was aware of the collection's significance. Rorrer said he
remembers her making only one fleeting reference to comics: Upon learning he
and his brother liked comic books, she said she had some she would one day give
them. He said his great uncle never mentioned his collection.
Allen, who called the collection "jaw-dropping," noted that
Wright "seemed to have a knack" for picking up the ones that would be
the most valuable. The core of his collection is from 1938 to 1941.
Hernandez said it makes sense that her uncle - even as a boy - had a
discerning eye. The man who went to The College of William and Mary before
having a long career as a chemical engineer for DuPont was smart, she said.
And, she added, Wright was an only child whose mother kept most everything he
had. She said that they found games from the 1930s that were still in their
original boxes.
"There were some really hard to find books that were in really,
really great condition," said Paul Litch, the primary grader at Certified
Guaranty Company, an independent certification service for comic books.
"You ca see it was a real collection," Litch said.
"Someone really cared about these and kept them in good shape."
