In case you missed our previous episode, lemme catch you up. Three brothers in Northern California are three days into sorting their late mother’s belongings when they find a box in the attic. Mom had told them before she had a comic book collection, but they could never have imagined what they saw in the dusty box.
A near-mint condition copy of Superman No. 1 from 1939, “The first thing we did was: My middle brother went and got a mylar sleeve for it,” the youngest brother told the Intelligent Collector of their find. “We at the time didn’t know quite what to do, didn’t have a plan. The new Superman movie was coming out, so we were like, ‘You know, there will be hype around Superman. Let’s wait, make a plan, don’t do anything rash, then figure out what to do.'”
So they sent the book to Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) to find out just how near-mint this copy is, and drumroll… It’s graded a 9.0, with off-white to white pages. Heritage Auctions called it “the highest-graded Universal copy ever” when it went up for auction.
As of Nov 20, 2025, the results are in. What was the final price? $9.12 million.
This recently found 9.0 Superman No. 1 sold for 7.6 million with a 20% buyer’s premium, making it the most expensive comic book sold. This sale breaks the previous record set by an 8.5-graded copy of Action Comics No. 1, which sold for $6 million through Heritage Auctions in 2024.
Let’s go to the replay to see the final bid.
“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,” says 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. And thanks in part to Heritage Auctions’ reach and platform, market values have become more accessible and trackable than ever before. We’re so proud of Heritage’s role in helping standardize, popularize, and grow the entire collectibles hobby.”
“It was riveting to see this Superman #1 — the highest-graded example ever certified by CGC — shatter the previous auction record for any comic book,” CGC President Matt Nelson said. “This result is a testament not only to this comic’s rarity and preservation, and the strength of the comic book market overall, but also to the expertise and trust that define CGC’s role in the collectibles market.”
And so dear reader, that leaves us with a few questions: Does this sale highlight the importance of grading and authentication? Will we see greater demand for more books slabbed because more people want to find the next big book? And lastly, what do you do after buying a $9 million dollar book? Do you open a museum and charge people to look at the book?
