First Superman fetches $317,200


http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45566000/jpg/_45566567_superman_ap226x300.jpg There are only 100 copies of the first edition of Superman left

A rare copy of the first Superman comic, dating from 1938, has sold at auction for $317,200 (£227,000).
The online auction started two weeks ago and attracted 89 bidders. Neither the buyer nor the seller were named.
The copy was described as unrestored. The cover shows the cape-wearing action hero from the planet Krypton lifting a car above his head.
There are only 100 copies left of the first Superman comic, which sold for 10 cents when it appeared in June 1938.
Stephen Fishler, the owner of the online auction site Comic Connect said the Superman comic had been in the same hands since 12 years after it was published, when a young boy on the US west coast bought it for 35 cents.
He then forgot about it until 1966 when it emerged in his mother's basement. He held on to since then, hoping it would gain in value, Mr Fishler told CNN.
He said before the auction the comic might fetch as much as $400,000.
Superman is generally recognised as the first superhero to appear in comics - predating the likes of Spiderman and Batman.
The crime fighter's secret alter ego is Clark Kent, a mild-mannered, bespectacled reporter for the The Daily Planet, who dashes into phone booths to change into Superman.
The now-dilapidated house in Cleveland, Ohio where writer Jerry Siegel and illustrator Joe Shuster created Superman sold in an online auction last October for $100,000 (£71,000).

I wonder how much this original comic would have sold for if we were not in a recession? I have a reprint of this comic from about 7-8 years ago. :)

What condition is the comic book in?

The June, 1938 cover of Action Comics that first featured the character "Superman."

NEW YORK — A rare copy of the first comic book featuring Superman has sold for $317,200 in an Internet auction. The previous owner of Action Comics No. 1 bought it for less than a buck.
It's one of the highest prices ever paid for a comic book, a likely testament to the volume's rarity and its excellent condition, said Stephen Fishler, co-owner of the auction site ComicConnect.com and its sister dealership, Metropolis Collectibles.
The winning bid for the 1938 edition, which features Superman lifting a car on its cover, was submitted Friday evening by John Dolmayan, drummer for the rock band System of a Down, according to managers at ComicConnect.com.
In addition to being a musician, Dolmayan is a dealer of rare comic books. The auctioneers said he acquired the Superman comic on behalf of an unidentified client.
"I imagine it's someone from the entertainment world," said Vincent Zurzolo, chief operating officer at ComicConnect and Metropolis Collectibles.
Only about 100 copies of Action Comics No. 1 are known to exist and they seldom come up for sale.
"Maybe in a booming economy, it would have done a hundred grand more, but in the his economy, I think the price is great," Fishler said.
The man who had previously owned the book purchased it in a secondhand store in the early 1950s when he was nine years old.
He paid 35 cents

It sounds like it was in excellent condition. For that kind of money, I would expect it to be. :wave:

This copy was listed in a condition of 6.0, which is only fine condition. But it is the highest rated condition of any of the surviving copies that has NOT been restored in any way.

This copy was listed in a condition of 6.0, which is only fine condition. But it is the highest rated condition of any of the surviving copies that has NOT been restored in any way.


That'll do it. :)

I am surprised that not many people kept the original. I used to keep everything, except, eventually my parents would throw things out. I had a whole slough of 1960s, possibly 1950s as well, comics from older kids in the early 1970s. I got hit by a car and spent a year on my back while the people we knew gave me bags full of older comic books and GI Joes. My parents threw them out in the garbage a long time ago. :(

I am surprised that not many people kept the original. I used to keep everything, except, eventually my parents would throw things out. I had a whole slough of 1960s, possibly 1950s as well, comics from older kids in the early 1970s. I got hit by a car and spent a year on my back while the people we knew gave me bags full of older comic books and GI Joes. My parents threw them out in the garbage a long time ago. :(

You pretty much answered your own question - it's not the reader/collector who throws it out - it's the well-meaning interloper!

parents... can't live with them, can't live without them.:freak:

. . . Superman is generally recognised as the first superhero to appear in comics - predating the likes of Spiderman and Batman.In fact, the Phantom predated Superman by more than two years. Of course, if you want to split hairs, it depends on your definition of "superhero." Like Batman and the Green Hornet, the Phantom has no superhuman powers. He was, however, the first comic-strip crimefighter to wear a skintight costume -- and a mask that makes the pupils of the eyes disappear!. . . I am surprised that not many people kept the original. I used to keep everything, except, eventually my parents would throw things out. I had a whole slough of 1960s, possibly 1950s as well, comics from older kids in the early 1970s. I got hit by a car and spent a year on my back while the people we knew gave me bags full of older comic books and GI Joes. My parents threw them out in the garbage a long time ago. :(Until the "camp" and pop-art movements of the late 1960s, comic books were generally considered junk. They were ephemeral juvenile entertainment, not worthy of being preserved. If most of them hadn't been thrown in the trash over the years, they wouldn't be fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars now.

That'll do it. :)

I am surprised that not many people kept the original. I used to keep everything, except, eventually my parents would throw things out. I had a whole slough of 1960s, possibly 1950s as well, comics from older kids in the early 1970s. I got hit by a car and spent a year on my back while the people we knew gave me bags full of older comic books and GI Joes. My parents threw them out in the garbage a long time ago. :(

The major reason that comics from that era are rare is simple: World War 2. There was a MASSIVE paper recycling drive on during the war, as paper was in high demand for things such as drop tanks for planes. Naturally, 'kid stuff' like comic books were among the first things sent to the recyclers.

I knew there were all kinds of scrap-material drives during the war, for paper, aluminum, copper, rubber and other strategic materials. But until I Googled the subject just now, I had no idea there were such things as paper drop tanks.

You live and learn.