Near Complete DC Comics Collection to Auction

Going under the hammer later this month will be the first tranche of The Christine Farrell Complete DC Collection, an auction featuring nearly 500 comic books, including 1940’s Double Action Comics No. 2, of which only seven copies have survived.

By the time she died in April this year, Christine Farrell from Burlington, Vermont, had developed a collection running to tens of thousands of books, including nearly every single one DC Comics had ever published, beginning with 1935’s New Fun Comics No. 1. Farrell, began her quest in 1970 and even loaned her books to DC when they couldn’t find copies to make reprints.  Farrell granted few interviews and was never identified publicly as the keeper of the collection, even though she owned a comic shop in Burlington called Earth Prime Comics.

Running October 25-26, Heritage Auctions will present books from Farrell’s collection and continue to do so into the summer of 2025.

“Her dedication was simply remarkable,” said Heritage Auctions Vice President Lon Allen. “She did most of this pre-internet. Now, you could put that collection together in several years if you had the money. But back then, tracking down every book took real devotion. And she did not own a single graded or certified book. They were in mylar sleeves, in boxes, sometimes in piles. It was clear that she just wanted to read these books, no matter how many thousands of dollars they were worth.”

Heritage began offering some of Farrell’s books at the end of September, including a copy of 1935’s New Comics No. 1 that realized nearly $8,000.