Top Highlights from Hakes Latest Blockbuster Sale

YORK, PA – Hake’s March 25-26 auction of extraordinary rarities from across today’s most popular collecting categories rocketed to a lofty $2.2 million, with many new world records set along the way. Prior to the sale, Hake’s president, Alex Winter, had predicted the Star Wars original comic art would reach “a new level in the marketplace.”

It did exactly that. The greatest prize in the comic book art category was Howard Chaykin’s (b. 1950-) original pen-and-ink page (Page 16) from Star Wars #1, the first of six issues in a series published by Marvel in July 1977 as a print adaptation of the film Star Wars: A New Hope. The page’s seven panels represented two pivotal scenes from the film, with Darth Vader appearing in four of them; and an immediately-recognizable vehicle, the Jawas’ Sand Crawler, in another. Significantly, the comic book’s text closely paralleled the movie’s dialogue.

Undeniably one of the most important examples of Star Wars art from any era or publisher to reach the public marketplace, the Chaykin page made its auction debut with an open estimate and starting bid of $10,000. Following a bidding battle royale, it closed at $80,475, a record price for any Star Wars comic book story page original art.

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