A 1941 copy of Captain America Comics No. 1 that spent nearly eight decades stored in a cardboard box has sold for $716,750 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas, topping the house's Comic Books Signature Auction held from 24 to 26 September. The book, graded 9.0 by CGC, comes from the Merrimack Valley Collection, a recently uncovered stash of Golden Age comics bought off the newsstand by the original owner in the early 1940s and left largely untouched ever since. Against the odds, many of the books survived in strong condition with their colours intact. The issue is one of the most important in comics history: it introduces Steve Rogers as Captain America, debuts Bucky Barnes and the Red Skull, and carries the famous Joe Simon and Jack Kirby cover of Cap striking Adolf Hitler, published months before the United States entered the Second World War. The Merrimack Valley material supplied many of the sale's highlights. The second-finest known copy of Captain America No. 3, graded 9.4, realised $268,400, while high-grade copies of Batman issues from the collection included a 2.5-graded Batman No. 1 at $158,600 and a 9.0 Batman No. 9 at $103,700. Outside the collection, a CGC 8.5 Wonder Woman No. 1 made $158,600 and a 7.0 Amazing Fantasy No. 15, the 1962 debut of Spider-Man, also reached six figures. The comics portion of the sale totalled $8.4 million. A concurrent comic art auction added another $9.7 million, bringing the four-day combined result to just over $18.1 million. Original art was led by Jerry Robinson's 1942 cover for Detective Comics No. 68, the first cover appearance of Two-Face, which sold for $475,000, alongside strong results for Frank Miller's 1970s and 1980s Daredevil pages, including $450,000 for the first Elektra story page and $325,000 for the rooftop showdown with Bullseye. Heritage vice president Aaron White said the condition of the Merrimack Valley books was the surprise of the sale, noting that original-owner material stored for 75 to 80 years in ordinary cardboard rarely survives in such grade, and that the results showed collectors continue to reward top-condition examples of foundational issues.