Billy Wright's Comic Collection sold for a heroic $3.5m led by Batman

The remarkable find of Billy Wright's Comic Collection has earned his family $3.5m at auction

Hopefully any readers who are major comic book collectors managed to get in on the act quick enough to bid on some of the highlights of the extraordinary Billy Wright collection.

The collection, which we profiled in our most recent newsletter, was that of a man who owned good or very good copies of five of the six most coveted comic books in existence, but died without alerting anyone to the fact. It's unclear whether he knew the value of what he had.

Billy Wright's Action Comics #1

Wright's nephew only discovered how valuable the comics were when he mentioned one to a work colleague which showed Captain America bursting in on Adolf Hitler. This was Captain America #2 and worth up to five or even six figures depending on the condition.

But it wasn't even close to the most valuable.

The top three lots were more or less as expected, though they did well against their estimates. The bidding was enthusiastic, and there were even some rounds of applause for some of the final prices:

A fabulous 8.5 graded copy of Batman #1 - the caped crusader's first standalone comic - sold for $275,000 early on, and a relatively well preserved copy (graded 3.0) of the comic which kicked off the Golden Age of Superheroes by introducing Superman in 1938 sold for $299,000.

Billy Wright's Dectective Comics #27 - greeting 'The Bat Man'

The star of the show, however, was a copy of Detective Comics #27 which actually introduced Batman in 1939. This was graded 6.0 - a rare grade indeed for the famously smudgeable comic - and an excited collector took it home for $523,000.

In total the collection sold for an astonishing total of around $3.5m.

Recent and related articles

· Daredevil #1 comic book - 9.6 quality with 'white pages' - auctions in Dallas | 9 February 2012

· Batman Detective Comics #27 'graded 6.5' signed by Bob Kane sells online | 4 February 2012

· Amazing Spider-man #1 comic set to scale great heights at Morphy's auction | 2 February 2012

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Images: Heritage