Comic Books

Spider-Man Passes Superman as Most Expensive Comic Book Ever!

Records are meant to be broken. Action Comics #1 is the introduction of Superman to the world, and it previously held a record sale of $3.25 million. That new record now belongs to the world’s introduction to Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15 from 1962. Heritage Auctions just had a CGC 9.6 example sell for $3.6 million after the 20% buyer’s premium.

That’s not bad for a comic book with a 12-cent newsstand price back in 1962. According to the Heritage Auctions site, there were a total of 53 bids. Heritage has also recorded over 41,000 page views for the item.

This intro for Spider-Man came from the #1 Amazing Spider-Man Registry Set Collection and it is the highest graded example that is known to exist. Only two other 9.6 examples are known to exist One of the key drivers that made Spider-Man so hot is the new movie Spider-Man: No Way Home. There is a historic drive that upcoming movies can send comic book prices considerably higher.

The website GoCollect.com had previously listed a value for a 9.6 example of $1,600,000. The theoretical value of a 9.8 example, which isn’t even known to exist, was $2,300,000 at the time. This auction price now alters all prior estimates, and GoCollect had even later raised the theoretical value to $2.7 million for a 9.8 grade and a $1.75 million for a 9.6 grade.

Obviously these prior estimates are all higher now, but there is another consideration here. This auction is now likely to create a lifting effect on the rest of the key Spider-Man issues. Quite simply, this should pull up the value of the countless graded examples of the Amazing Fantasy $15 that exist.

Where this gets interesting in that lifting effect is that there are an estimated 3,472 total examples of Amazing Fantasy #15. For Golden Age and Silver Age comic books that just is not all that scarce.

Sales of Amazing Fantasy #15 are actually not that uncommon. There are many graded examples and there are many up for grabs at any time. What is not up for grab routinely are examples that are this close to being in mint condition.

Heritage previously sold an exampled of Amazing Fantasy #15 graded CGC NM 9.4 (with off-white to white pages) back on March 5, 2020 for $795,000.00 — and the an example of the same 9.4 grade of Amazing Fantasy #15 previously sold on February 18, 2016 for $454,100.00.

As for the actual Spider-Man #1 released in 1963, Heritage’s most expensive sale of that comic book was considered the Curator Pedigree. It was graded CGC NM+ 9.6 (with white pages) and it sold on November 17, 2016 for $262,900.00. Collectors Dashboard has already evaluated how these have exponential price differences, but this likely lifts that pricing as well.

Here is why the high-condition examples sell for so high. Only about 1.1% of all graded examples are at a CGC 9.0 or higher. These are the highest concentrations of all graded examples, by grade, and showing the GoCollect prior price estimates before an adjustment:

  • 4.0 (290 examples) estimated at $34,000
  • 3.5 (291 examples) estimated at $31,000
  • 3.0 (386 examples) estimated at $30,000

Heritage made the final ploy to auction buyers for this lot:

Heritage has been auctioning comic books for 20 years, and in seemingly every one of those 20 someone has reached out to us asking if we knew the whereabouts of one of the 9.6 copies of this book. Well, now we do and so do you — this is your chance! Overstreet 2021 NM- 9.2 value = $450,000. CGC census 9/21: 4 in 9.6, none higher.

The 1938 comic book (Action Comics #1) introducing Superman had a newsstand price of 10-cents back in 1938. It has been considered to be the grail comic and the world’s most valuable comic book, but there was a disappointing sale this summer. These “Superman rookie” examples just do not come up for auction that often. The universal graded examples are 2,219 examples, followed by 49 “qualified and 298 signature examples. Those are then followed by 906 restored examples, which are generally considered to be less valuable than the prized universal grades.

The prices of this comic book have started to become a block to how many collectors can buy Spider-Man’s “rookie” edition. Sometimes you can at least hold one at a convention.