Comic books selling for lots of money seems to be the hot topic nowadays. News has come out that Flash Comics #1 graded 9.6 has sold for a respectable $450,000. In 2006 another copy went for $273,125. This comes on the news of the record shattering sales of Detective Comics #27 and Action Comics #1.
Come back today when we’ll have another article on a big sale that’s been teased.
Just a few days after Action Comics #1 became the first comic ever to break the million dollar mark, it’s record amount was broken by Detective Comics #27. The 8.0 graded copy of the issue went for $1,075,500. That is now the highest amount ever paid for a comic book.
Heritage Comic Auctions handled the sale and both the seller and buyer remain anonymous.
ComicConnect.com this week sold a 8.0 graded copy of Action Comics #1 this week for $1 million, over 3 times the previous most for a comic book, sold by the same site. Only 100 copies of this comic remain and only two unrestored copies (of which the one sold is one) are graded 8.0 or higher in their quality, making this one of the rarest comic books in existence.
Up until now, the record-holder was another Action Comics #1, this one with a grading of 6.0. It sold on ComicConnect.com for $317,200 in 2009.
The Comics Chronicles estimates between 200,000 and 300,000 copies of the comic were printed when it was released in 1939.
Official Press Release
The Mercury, Portland Oregon’s weekly alternative newspaper, is in the midst of their Annual Charity auction and bidding just started on this smoking comic book lot! Two Portland comic shops, Bridge City Comics and Floating World Comics, threw some awesome books in the stack as well as publisher donations from Fantagraphics and Top Shelf. Portland based indie comic powerhouse publisher Oni Press sweetened the pot by adding an entire year on their companies comp list!
http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Page?id=HolidayAuction&item=251
DETAILS FROM PORTLAND MERCURY
Get all of your graphic novel needs for 2010 taken care of in one fell swoop! Local comics publisher Oni Press —the geniuses who’ve brought us comics like Wasteland and the Scott Pilgrim series—have donated a spot on their comp list, meaning the winner of this auction will get copies of every book Oni publishes next year! You’ll also get selected comics from artsy comics publisher Fantagraphics , including books like Peter Bagge’s Buddy Does Seattle and a hardcover copy of Joe Sacco’s Palestine. Plus you’ll get a collected edition of Jeff Lemire’s beloved Essex County trilogy from local publisher Top Shelf! Plus you’ll get a stack of books from two of Portland’s best comic shops: Bridge City Comics (3725 NE Mississippi), including books like The Mirror of Love by Alan Moore and José Villarrubia and The Goon Fancy Pants Edition Volume 2 by Eric Powell, and Floating World Comics (20 NW 5th, Ste 101), including books like David Mack’s Kabuki: The Alchemy, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, and issues of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror and Criminal)! Those kazillion books will make the shelves in your nerd-lair mighty impressive—and we’ll help you tie the room together by giving the winner a photograph of Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica, autographed by actress Katee Sackhoff!
We hear rumors of individuals coming across comic books they didn’t know about or randomly found in a basement or attic, but here’s a case in which it actually happened. An auction of comic books near St. Louis brought in over $1 million in sales in early November. The top seller was a first issue of X-Men, which sold for $101,000.
The comics were found in the basement of a recently deceased elderly woman. Her son had predeceased her, and instead of doing what so many parents before her have done (throw out the comics) she left the roughly 3,000 comics to sit in her basement.
The house (and it’s contents) was inherited by a cousin. It seems the fact the comics were just sitting there, the elderly woman and her son didn’t know their value. The heir had no clue of the value either until an appraisal revealed that some of the comics were extremely valued by collectors in the field. Mound City Auctions, who specialize in local real estate, estate, and business sales, was called in to help sell the items.
