DALLAS — By every estimation, 2022 was a home run for Heritage Auctions. The auction house recorded more than $1.45 billion in sales in 2022, a record high for the 46-year-old Dallas-based company following 2021’s landmark results. It also set dozens of significant auction records spanning most of its categories, including one for the world’s most valuable sports collectible when a 1952 Mickey Mantle baseball card sold last summer for $12.6 million.
That $1.45 billion total consists of approximately $1.07 billion in auction sales, with the rest constituting private sales brokered by Heritage. It does not include the $103.5 million realized for Russian newspaper editor Dmitry Muratov’s Nobel Peace Prize medal, which he sold through Heritage on June 21. Heritage waived its commission, and every cent raised from this momentous auction was immediately paid to UNICEF’s humanitarian response to the war in Ukraine.
Heritage’s numerous auction records set in 2022 spanned almost all of the auction house’s more than 40 categories. That includes U.S. coins, which realized more than $310 million in total auction sales, a 21% increase against 2021’s record-setting numbers.
Coin highlights include the August sale of a 1927-D Double Eagle MS66 PCGS from the Bob R. Simpson collection, which brought $4.44 million, at the time the highest price realized at auction for any U.S. coin in 2022. Just six weeks later, an 1821 Half Eagle PR65 featured in Heritage’s first of several scheduled auctions for the Harry W. Bass Jr. core collection earned $4.62 million to top that record.
Heritage’s Comics and Comic Art category ended 2022 with more than $195 million in total sales, exceeding 2021’s results by 7%. The year got off to a web-swinging start with January’s $3.36 million sale of page 25 from 1984’s Secret Wars No. 8. That work, which tells the origin story of Spider-Man’s black costume, remains the world’s most valuable page of original comic book artwork. April’s Comics & Comic Art Signature® realized a staggering $27,674,844, making it, by far, the most successful comics auction ever held.
Heritage’s Sports category continued to wow in 2022, realizing more than $157 million in total sales while setting more major auction records than any of its competitors. On Aug. 28, the 1952 Topps Mantle, graded a Mint+ 9.5 by Sportscard Guaranty Corporation, sold for a record-shattering $12.6 million, which remains the highest price ever paid at auction for any sports collectible.
Heritage’s Historical category saw remarkable growth in 2022, with total sales realizing more than $36.3 million, a 124% jump from 2021’s $16.2 million. This year Heritage introduced its Historical Platinum auctions, which span centuries of human achievement. The most recent one, held at the beginning of December, saw the only known photograph of Marilyn Monroe inscribed to Joe DiMaggio sell for $300,000 to set a new auction record for a signed Monroe photograph.
Jewelry shone particularly brightly at Heritage in 2022 as the category saw a 22% increase in total sales, from $21.6 million to more than $26.38 million. In September, a .21-carat Fancy orangy-red diamond achieved $1,755,000, nearly 12 times its estimate, to become the highest price ever paid for an item of jewelry at Heritage Auctions.
The Entertainment & Music category saw an uptick in sales in 2022, jumping 10% from $19.877 million to $21.787 million. Twice this year, Heritage set new records for concert posters — first in April, when a poster from the Beatles’ 1966 Shea Stadium concert realized $275,000, then again in November, when the rarest-known Buddy Holly poster, bearing the date of the event that became known as the Day the Music Died, realized $447,000.
In 2022 Heritage introduced a new category, VHS and Home Entertainment, which kicked off with a bang in June, when actor Tom Wilson’s shrink-wrapped copy of his original Back to the Future VHS tape sold for $75,000 to become, at the time, the most world’s valuable sealed and graded videotape.
Heritage has long prided itself in being the leading illustration and American art auctioneer. In 2022 the auction house was thrilled to set several records in the category, including ones for author-illustrator Maurice Sendak and artist Shepard Fairey.
On May 11, Sendak’s Let the Wild Rumpus Start! (Happy Birthday Wild Things!), painted in 1988 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Where the Wild Things Are, set an auction record for the artist when it sold for $212,500. Eight days later, one of the three Shepard Fairey HOPE collages made for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign sold for a record-setting $735,000.
