During their 50th year celebration last November, Hake’s Americana & Collectibles beat several in-house records, including best first day of bids and auction total. While they could’ve just ridden that wave of success, the team at Hake’s buckled down to open their 51st year with a gangbusters auction.

Hake’s has reported that once again they have beaten their best opening day record. On Tuesday, February 20, 2018, Hake’s opened the auction for bidding and accumulated $475,000 in bids. This beat the previous record of $385,000, set just three months ago in November 2017, by nearly $100,000. What’s more, that November record-setter more than doubled the previous first day total of $182,000.

“Our first day record for the November auction was something we knew would be hard to top. However, once we finalized the lineup of items in the current auction, we saw the potential that was there and just hoped the bidders would respond once we went online. We were not disappointed and saw the most active opening day of bidding ever. As expected comic books and Star Wars led the way but in general the entire auction got off to a fast start,” Hake’s President Alex Winter said.

Attributing to this impressive new record is a combination of exceedingly popular rarities and a large variety of collectibles from across historical and pop culture memorabilia. Auction #223 houses 2,332 lots with toys, political ephemera, comics, movie and concert posters, pinbacks, artwork, Disneyana, superhero memorabilia, campaign buttons, and more.  

Top historical and political items that collectors are vying for are the Roosevelt/Fairbanks “Souvenir of Pretzel Town Reading, PA” jugate button Hake #5 (lot 186), Bell/Everett 1860 Currier Grand National jugate banner (lot 41), and 2009-W High Relief Double Eagle $20 Gold Coin in brilliant uncirculated (lot 645).

Some of the key comics that bidders have already begun battling over are Detective Comics #27 CGC 5.0 (lot 1152), Action Comics #7 CGC 4.0 (lot 1120), Captain America Comics #3 CGC 7.0 (lot 1181), and More Fun Comics #52 CGC 3.0 (lot 1167).

The Star Wars Collection of Russell Branton Part II is seeing lots of interest, led by the Boba Fett rocket-firing prototype (L-slot) action figure (lot 1992) and Darth Vader 12-back-A double-telescoping AFA 70 EX+ (lot 1982).

Hake’s Auction #223 will close on Tuesday through Thursday, March 13-15. Collectors can view the entire auction and bid at hakes.com.