Pop-Culture Memorabilia Totals $2.5 Million At Hake’s Auction – Antiques And The Arts Weekly

Review by W.A. Demers; Photos Courtesy Hake’s Auction

YORK, PENN. — At Hake’s $2.5 million sale, there was a bumper crop of unique Pop culture rarities on March 19-20. The varied 1,928-lot selection in the firm’s first major event of 2024 ranged from original comic-book art to a Dave Grohl handwritten Nirvana set list to sole survivors of the baseball and trading-card realm.

At $54,516 against an estimate of $2/5,000, an Aurora Superman and Spider-Man rare store two-pack factory-sealed boxed model kit pair was a showstopper. “By miles, a record for any Aurora item,” noted Alex Winter, president of Hake’s. Typically sold individually for $1 apiece, Grant’s bundled both models for a BOGO special promotion. “Extremely rare and the only such example we know of,” catalog notes stated. “If you are an Aurora completist, it is rather unlikely you will ever see another, especially in this high grade.”

The lot was from the Janusey Brothers collection, a renowned body of pristine Aurora and other Pop culture stars. Another boxed and unused Aurora model kit from the Janusey Brothers collection was “Godzilla’s Go Kart,” a rare model that was produced in low numbers with limited distribution to a few stores near Aurora’s Long Island headquarters. Hake’s said it was the only boxed example it has seen in its 57 years of operation. Consequently, it sped to a world-record $36,344 against an estimate of $10/20,000.

In fact, there were a number of records in this sale enumerated by Winter. A record price for the Star Wars figure in any condition was posted for a 1984 Palitoy Star Wars: Return of the Jedi Tri-Logo 70 Back-B blister card containing a 3¾-inch action figure of General Madine. Internationally targeted, its packaging bore text in English, Spanish, French and Italian. It sold for record-setting $42,242 against an estimate of $10/20,000.

A record for the item in any condition endued to a move by toymaker Kenner to use a mail-away promotional offer in order to get Star Wars action figures to consumers before they hit store shelves as they were not able to get their figures to market in time for the 1977 holiday season. Offered in a special “Star Wars Early Bird Certificate Package,” consumers could send away for the kit offered here. It brought $25,960.

Channeling the anticipation and excitement of a presidential election year, early campaign memorabilia proved desirable. An 1860 glazed cotton parade flag, a collector favorite because of its charming spelling “Abram” and manageable size at 11½ by 16½ inches, was found in the 1980s in a long-hidden trove of two dozen campaign flags from the 1860-1868 elections. Bidders pursued it to a final price of $42,185 against an estimate of $20/35,000.

A Theodore Roosevelt/Charles E. Hughes/William H. Taft “Security Harmony Justice” 1916 campaign button with images of all three men crossed the block at $25,960 against an estimate of $10/20,000. The button was intended to be given out at an October 3, 1916, event in Hughes’ honor, but Roosevelt had earlier in the summer refused the nomination from the Progressive party intending to support the GOP candidate. When he learned this button would be given out at the event, he became enraged, wishing not to be associated with Taft.

Questions about age and a political candidate’s ability to serve are nothing new, as illustrated by a “Harrison and Reform” Log Cabin & Hard Cider Barrel 1840 campaign American flag bidders raised to $25,129. During the 1840 campaign, William Henry Harrison was 67 years old, the oldest presidential candidate to date at a time when most males could expect to live to roughly 40. Martin Van Buren, his opponent, suggested he was better suited to sipping hard cider outside a log cabin and thus a pre-meme campaign tactic was born. The Harrison campaign used the hard cider and log cabin motif, which implied their candidate was a man of the people while Van Buren was portrayed as an out-of-touch, champagne-sipping aristocrat.

Characterized as the “best example we have offered,” a blister card containing a 2¼-inch-tall Star Wars Jawa Kenner action figure with the initial “Vinyl Cape” took $36,604.

Sometimes sports cards that are graded poor succeed at auction because of their rarity. Such was the case with a 1910 Baltimore News baseball card depicting Orioles manager Jack Dunn (1872-1928). The only example to ever come to auction, according to Hake’s experts, it was first of three different series of baseball cards produced and distributed by the Baltimore News over a five-year period. This 1910 example depicts members of the Eastern League’s Baltimore Orioles baseball club on the front of 2¾-by-3½-inch baseball cards produced in either monochrome red and white or blue and white colors with black text schedule backs identifying home and away games. Advertising for the local newspaper appeared at the top and bottom. It popped up at $28,556 against an estimate of $10/20,000.

Fetching $26,090 was a sealed booster box from Wizards of the Coast’s 1994 Legends Edition, the third expansion set for Magic: The Gathering and the first to have cards with multiple colors to play. The booster box contained 36 packs, each with 15 cards, for a total of 540 cards.

Original comic book art delivered solid results. Here, Dick Giordano’s (1932-2010) original pen-and-ink comic book cover art for DC Comics’ Batman #315 (September 1979) went out at $14,278. It featured Batman airborne above Gotham with his Bat-Glider, ready to battle Kite-Man.

Also, Tales of Suspense #39, Marvel’s origin and first appearance of Iron Man (Tony Stark), stories by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber, cover by Jack Kirby and Don Heck, proved a key Silver Age Marvel comic and left the gallery at $16,909.

Prices given include the buyer’s premium as stated by the auction house. For additional information, 866-404-9800 (toll-free), 717-434-1600 or www.hakes.com.