Mon, September 7, 2026 at 10:47 AM UTC
Heritage Auctions closed the first half of 2026 with $1.41 billion in sales — a 47% jump over the same period in 2025 and the highest midyear total in the company’s history, according to Heritage’s own Intelligent Collector magazine. What’s notable isn’t just the number. It’s what’s inside it: a Super Mario Bros. sealed cartridge pulling $3 million, a Pikachu Illustrator card hitting $1.4 million, and Star Wars Day auctions alone bringing in $3.6 million, right alongside the coins and fine art that used to define the company.
A record year for a 50-year-old company
The timing carries weight — 2026 is Heritage’s 50th anniversary, and the company’s own H1 total already outpaces most competitors’ full-year hauls, according to ARTnews’ independent reporting on the results. Heritage CEO Steve Ivy framed the milestone directly in the company’s own release: “Crossing $1.4 billion during the first half of our 50th anniversary year speaks not only to market strength, but to collector breadth.” Co-Chairman Jim Halperin put a finer point on what “breadth” actually means in practice, noting that “today’s collectors increasingly recognize that cultural history takes many forms.”
That’s a meaningful shift in framing for an auction house that built its reputation on coins and comics. Heritage’s own numbers back it up: a January numismatic sale alone brought in $89.81 million, and a 1911 Chinese “Short-Whiskered Dragon” pattern dollar sold for $4.88 million, according to the company’s midyear report. Traditional categories are still doing serious business — but they’re no longer the whole story.
Where pop culture actually landed in the numbers
The entertainment and pop-culture side of the ledger reads like a highlight reel of things that used to be considered toys, not investments. A T206 Honus Wagner card — the most famous card in the hobby — sold for $3.599 million, while a 1997 Michael Jordan “Masterpiece” card brought $2.1 million, both inside a single Winter Platinum Night Sports Auction that totaled $38.6 million on its own, per ARTnews’ breakdown. Hulk Hogan’s WrestleMania I boots sold for just over $1 million.
Video games and trading cards showed similar strength: a sealed Super Mario Bros. cartridge went for $3 million, a Pokémon First Edition Base Set sold above $1.2 million, and a private transaction paired Batman No. 1 and Superman No. 1 comics for a combined $13 million, according to Heritage’s own reporting. None of that existed as a serious auction category when Heritage was founded in 1976. Now it’s competing dollar-for-dollar with Norman Rockwell paintings and rare-book collections in the same six-month stretch.
What the shift actually signals
ARTnews’ analysis frames the record as evidence that collecting itself is getting broader, not just bigger — the same wealthy and middle-tier buyers who once needed a Rembrandt or a rare coin to feel like serious collectors are now willing to spend seven figures on a Game Boy cartridge or a wrestling boot, provided the provenance and rarity check out. That’s a genuine structural change in how collecting works, not a passing fad tied to one hot auction.
For a 50-year-old auction house, the milestone works as both a birthday and a thesis statement: the things people grew up with — video games, trading cards, movie memorabilia — aren’t a sideline to serious collecting anymore. They’re carrying as much of the load as the coins and fine art that built the company’s reputation in the first place, and the first-half numbers make that impossible to argue with.
