AI Representation: A stack of vintage comic books discovered in a Virginia home in 2011, part of a collection later sold for $3.5 million. Image credits: Chatgpt
Michael Rorrer, a 31-year-old Oxnard, California, resident, discovered 345 comics in a basement closet in his late great-aunt’s Martinsville, Virginia, home in 2011, a collection quietly assembled decades earlier by his great-uncle Billy Wright. Wright, who died in 1994 at age 66, collected the comics as a boy and young man between 1936 and 1941, later becoming a chemical engineer, and never discussed the collection with relatives beyond one brief mention, according to the Associated Press. Heritage Auctions reported in February 2012 that 44 of the 345 comics in Wright’s collection ranked among the top 100 Golden Age comics in the Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, a detail the Associated Press also cited in its coverage of the auction. 2012) stated that the Billy Wright comic book collection found by Michael Rorrer was auctioned off for around $3.5 million at Heritage Auctions’ February 2012 auction, with the money split between Rorrer, his brother Jonathan, and his mother Lisa Hernandez.
The managing director of comic books at Heritage Auctions, this was a type of Golden Age comic book collection that everybody thought did not exist anymore, according to Lon Allen. Heritage Auctions described the find as one of the most important Golden Age comic book collections in decades. That concentration of high-value issues is part of what convinced buyers and experts of the collection’s authenticity. Associated Press (Feb.
