“Toronto Collection” of 1950s Comics to be Auctioned by Heritage

Heritage Auction Galleries has announced the discovery of an original owner collection of several thousand 1950s comics, dubbed "the Toronto Collection," which is to be auctioned without reserve beginning with the firm's Feb. 27-29 Dallas auction.

"A lot of these are going to rank among the finest known copies of their respective issues," said Lon Allen, Director of Sales for the Comics Division. "The average condition of the collection at a whole is about Very Fine. We decided from the start to have a large portion of the collection CGC-certified, and we're seeing a number of 9.2 (Near Mint minus) certifications among the comics we've received back from CGC."

Allen noted that the collection has a complete run of the "Atlas superhero revival" issues. "The company now known as Marvel stopped publishing superheroes in the late 1940s, but from 1953-1955, they brought back Captain America and other superheroes to star in anti-Communist stories. These are highly collectable now, and the Toronto collection has some of the nicer copies I've seen."

"Superheroes were generally out of favor in the mid-1950s," Allen noted, "so some of the 1952-54 DC superhero issues are harder to find than their 1940s counterparts! I was glad to see that the Toronto collection has plenty of Batman, Detective Comics, Wonder Woman, Superman, and the like, and here again, most are among the highest-graded copies."

The collection, consigned by the heirs of an anonymous collector, consists primarily of U.S. comics, though it also includes a number of the tough-to-find Bell Features "hybrid" comics which repackaged the U.S. stories for a Canadian audience.

Consignments of Golden and Silver Age comics and original comic art are still being accepted through the January 14 deadline.

The highest-graded copy of Black Knight #1 (CGC 8.5) is among the highlights of the collection.

This is a guest article. The thoughts and opinions in this piece are those of their author and are not necessarily the thoughts of the Certified Collectibles Group.