To be clear, I am not a comic book guy. In high school, I read one issue of The Silver Surfer. That is pretty much the extent of my experience with comics. I was, however, a collector of baseball cards, so I do know the excitement involved in collectibles. I always hoped that my Ken Griffey, Jr. rookie card would help me pay for my first car. Or maybe my Jim Kelly autographed football would put me through college. But no. That is not how it works. Well apparently it does not work that way unless you have invested in some extremely rare, near-mint comic books.
In the past few days, there have been two astronomically-priced comic books up for sale. The first was Action Comics No. 1. It was first issued in June 1938, and it was the first appearance of Superman. Someone dished out $1,000,000 for this comic book, which was sold at ComicConnect.com. Don’t look now, but that is 10 million times the comic book’s original price in June 1938!
ComicConnect advertised this sale as a world record price for a comic book. This was the first comic book to ever sell for $1,000,000. Here is Action Comics No. 1 featuring the first appearance of Superman:
As it turns out, records are made to be broken. According to a Dallas Observer blog post, a copy of Detective Comics No. 27 sold yesterday for the price of $1,075,500. This comic book is famous because it featured the first appearance of the Batman. And like the Action Comics sale, this issue of Detective Comics sold for over 10 million times the original sales price of $0.10. And to make it even more astounding: the seller picked up this issue 40 years ago for $100. Now that is a hefty return on investment. Simply amazing.
Here is the Detective Comics No. 27 comic book that was sold for $1,075,500 yesterday at Heritage Auction Gallery in Dallas, TX:
Now go forth and keep collecting. Look for deals. Who knows? Maybe in 40 years, you will have a piece that is worth $1 million dollars. Good luck!