Christine Farrell’s complete collection of DC Comics will be up for auction this October. The obsessive comic collector reportedly had about 8,000 comics, including almost every single one DC had ever published by 1983.

Heritage Auctions will present The Christine Farrell Complete DC Collection on October 25-26 in an auction featuring nearly 500 comic books, including some of the publisher’s rarest. Bidding is now open, and Heritage will present books well into the summer of 2025. The collection will also have works of original comic art, including key pages from Bernie Wrightson’s Swamp Thing #1 and Frank Miller’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #4. Farrll’s collection features iconic Golden Age comic issues, including restored copies of Action Comics #1 and Superman #1, Detective Comics #38 (Robin’s debut), All-Star Comics #3 (the first appearance of the Justice Society of America), and Flash Comics #1.

The Christine Farrell Complete DC Collection notably includes 1940’s Double Action Comics #2, with only seven copies believed to still exist. Heritage Auctions sent the books from Farrell’s collection to Certified Guaranty Company, and many returned with some of the highest grades ever given to some of the Golden Age’s rarest and most sought-after comics. Heritage began offering some of Farrell’s books at the end of September, including 1935’s New Comics #1, which sold for nearly $8,000.

Heritage Auctions Vice President Lon Allen is in awe of Farrell’s comic collection. “Her dedication was simply remarkable. She did most of this pre-internet. Now, you could put that collection together in several years if you had the money,” the VP said. “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,’ Allen continued.

In a decades-old interview with the Associated Press, Farrell revealed that she funded her passion for collecting and reading comics on the earnings of a family-owned bottling business. “Everybody needs an outlet of some kind or other,” she said. “You project yourself into a fantasy world where the superhero always wins. It’s an escape.”

Farrell’s friend of almost forty years, comics dealer Joe Verenault, more recently revealed that the collector had a special place in her heart for DC Comics. “Chris loved this particular company of comics, DC, and she did it for that reason alone,” he said. “The fact that it turned out to be such a hard achievement and that they became staggeringly valuable was really secondary to her. But she was very, very pleased at how appreciated it was in the hobby that she had done such a thing.”

Heritage Auctions will present The Christine Farrell Complete DC Collection on October 25-26.

Source: Heritage Auctions