A legendary comic, once stashed away with old newspapers, flies past previous auction records and becomes the most expensive comic ever sold.

In a story that sounds straight out of a Golden Age comic itself, a pristine, first-edition copy of Superman #1 (DC Comics, 1939) has shattered the record for the most expensive comic book ever sold, fetching an astounding $9.12 million at a recent Heritage Auctions event (seen below).

The Million-Dollar Attic Find

The tale behind this monumental sale is just as remarkable as the price tag. The 86-year-old comic was discovered last year by three brothers in Northern California. While going through the belongings of their late mother, they found the comic carefully tucked away in a cardboard box, preserved under a stack of old newspapers in the family attic.

The brothers’ mother had purchased the book herself when she was just nine years old in San Francisco. While she had often mentioned having “rare comics somewhere,” the boys never located them—until now. Thanks to her foresight and the dry conditions of the attic, the comic was in near-perfect condition.

An Unprecedented Grade for the Man of Steel

The 1939 issue, which launched Superman into his own standalone series, received an unparalleled CGC grade of 9.0 (VF/NM). This places it as the highest-graded copy of the title comic debut known to exist, and one of only seven copies known to have a grade of 6.0 or higher.

The $9.12 million sale easily surpassed the previous record, which was held by a copy of Action Comics #1 (Superman’s first appearance) graded CGC 8.5, which sold for $6 million in 2024.

The Content That Defined a Legend

Superman #1 is considered one of the “Big Three” of comic collecting, alongside Action Comics #1 and Detective Comics #27 (Batman’s debut). Its significance lies in the fact that it marked the first time a character who debuted in a comic book was given their own dedicated title.

While the issue reprints the initial Superman stories from Action Comics #1-4, it also includes crucial, all-new material by creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, solidifying the hero’s lore. This new content totaled seven additional pages, which included:

• An expanded two-page origin story, where the exploding planet is first officially named Krypton and the adoptive parents are introduced as “an elderly couple, the Kents.”
• A four-page story detailing how Clark Kent became a reporter.
• A “Scientific Explanation” page to rationalize Superman’s amazing powers to readers.

These additions made Superman #1 essential to defining the character’s mythology for generations of fans.

The Mystery of Scarcity

Despite its record-breaking price, the comic presents a strange historical anomaly: scarcity. Superman #1 actually had a significantly larger print run—an estimated 900,000 copies across three printings—compared to Action Comics #1, which had a run of just over 200,000 copies.

Yet, high-grade copies of Superman #1 are rarer. The CGC census shows fewer copies graded above 7.5 than for Action Comics #1. One theory suggests this is because a large portion of the first printing was concentrated in major metropolitan areas, especially New York, where DC Comics may have taken advantage of the excitement around the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Comics distributed in these denser urban areas were thought to have a much higher rate of destruction, leading to fewer long-term “attic finds” than those with wider distribution.

The copy sold at Heritage Auctions is a confirmed first printing, identifiable by a small detail on the back-page advertisement for Action Comics #14, which in first prints notes the release date as “On Sale June 2.” Later printings simply say “Now On Sale.”

This new record will undoubtedly be a pivotal moment in the history of pop culture collecting, proving that these artifacts—the bedrock of our modern superhero fandom—are only increasing in value and historical importance.

---