Pristine First Edition Copy of Superman No. 1 Found in Attic Goes for $9.12 Million at Auction, Becomes Most Expensive Comic Ever Sold

An 86-year-old Superman comic found in a family attic has sold for a whopping $9.12 million at auction.

The 1939 first-edition copy of Superman No. 1 earned the highest CGC grade for the Man of Steel’s title comic debut, and became the most expensive comic ever sold when it went for over $9 million at a Heritage auction held this week.

Superman No. 1 is, alongside Action Comics No. 1 and Detective Comics No. 27, considered one of the “big three” comics. It marked the first time a character that debuted in a comic book had their own title devoted entirely to them. 500,000 copies of Superman No. 1 were initially printed, followed by print runs of 250,000 and then 150,000, but intact copies are rare today in part because it encouraged readers to cut the cover off to use as a poster.

This highest-ever-graded copy of Superman No. 1 was being protected by only a stack of old newspapers in a cardboard box, but still managed to earn a 9.0 on a 10-point scale by third-party comics grading service CGC. The $9.12 million price smashed the previous comic value record, set by an 8.5-graded copy of Action Comics No. 1 that sold for $6 million through Heritage Auctions in 2024.

This copy is one of only seven known with a CGC grade of 6.0 or higher. It tops esteemed pedigreed copies including the Mile High and Davis Crippen copies and is one of fewer than 100 copies of this issue in any grade, including restored examples, that Heritage has ever offered.

The copy that sold on Thursday was found last year under a stack of old newspapers in a cardboard box by three unnamed brothers in northern California while they were going through their late mother’s attic. Their mother had bought the comic when she was nine years old and living in San Francisco, the brothers, who have asked not to be named, said. Over the years, she told her sons that she had “rare comics somewhere,” but they never found them.

“This new record may someday be remembered as an early stage of popular culture collecting’s trajectory into the upper reaches of the auction field,” commented Jim Halperin, Co-Founder of Heritage Auctions. “The value and historical importance of these objects are becoming even more well-known to collectors all over the world.”

Image credit: Heritage Auctions.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.