By Rob Lamberti
By the time this column appears, a new record price for an unrestored Superman 1 will have been set. Indeed, it’s a record price for a comic book.
Someone paid $9.12 million, including the buyer’s premium, on Nov. 20.
Heritage Auctions Vice President Lon Allen said the sale was a momentous event.
“Superman no. 1 is a milestone in pop culture history, and this copy is not only in unprecedented condition, but it has a movie-worthy story behind it,” he said on the day of the sale. “I was glad to see the price reflect that and am honored Heritage was entrusted with this iconic book.”
Behind this first edition Superman 1 from 1939 is a fairy tale come true, or at least a welcome
change from the usual “my mom threw out my comics” story all too common in the 1960s to 1980s. Three brothers clearing out an attic in California after their mom died found this well-preserved issue, along with five high-grade Action Comics.
The 10-cent copy they found was among the 500,000 that were printed in the first run in May ‘39. Two other editions were printed later that year as sales exceeded expectations, the second with 250,000 copies and the third had a print run of 150,000. Despite the total run of about 900,000, very few high-grade unrestored copies exist.
The auctioneers believe many Superman 1s were damaged because the back cover was advertised as a poster that could be cut off.
This found issue was graded at 9.0, with white-to-off-white pages, the highest grade given to a Superman 1 by the third-party appraiser CGC. The grading notes noted a tanning interior cover, the spine fraying, light fingerprints on the cover and a small shadow on the top left of the front cover. It also notes the ad on page 32, which indicates this is a first-print edition.
“It’s almost unbelievable that, out of nearly a million copies of Superman #1 printed in 1939, only 200 have made it to CGC for grading over 25 years,” Matt Nelson, president of CGC, said on its website. “In addition to the considerable rarity of Superman #1 today, the fact that this copy is the most well-preserved CGC has ever seen is extraordinary.”
An 8.0 graded copy sold for $5.3 million in 2022.
The brothers told the auctioneers at Heritage Auctions that their mom always said she had a valuable comic collection hidden away for them, but apparently didn’t know what she meant by that. This small but powerful collection also has Action 9 graded at 6.5, Action 12 at 9.0, Action 15 at an amazing 9.4, Action 18 at 9.0, and Action 21 at 8.0.
The trio reached out to Heritage to discuss selling the book. These books will be among the comics auctioned between Nov. 20 and 22. As of Nov. 9, the bid stood at US$3.54 million with the buyer’s premium. It’s expected to breach the $7 million mark.
A small side note, 10 cents in 1939 is worth $2.25 today.
One of the most iconic television actors, June Lockhart, died of natural causes in October. She was 100. Her legacy includes a long list of film and television credits spanning from the 1930s until 2021.
The breadth of her characters spans from a stay-at-home farm mother of a kid who seemed to be saved every week by the Rough Collie named Lassie, to the mom of a space-faring family aimlessly wandering from planet to planet.
The lone child of her actor dad, Gene Lockhart, who was born in London, Ont., and had also played football for the Toronto Argonauts in 1910 to ’12, and her mom, U.K.-born Kathleen Arthur, was born in 1925 in New York City.
She played the character of Ruth Martin on the television show Lassie, and the character appeared in several issues of the comic of the same title, from number 40, where Paul and Ruth Martin buy the Miller farm and adopt Timmy.
The original TV space family were not depicted in the original 59-issue run of Gold Key’s Space Family Robinson, which ran from 1962 to 1982. Indeed, the publisher intended to sue producer Irwin Allen about the similarities in the titles, but held back because it also published other Allen shows, including Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
Lockhart’s character, Maureen Robinson, did appear in Innovation’s 18-issue series Lost in Space, which ran between 1991 and ’93, and a one-shot Project Robinson. Also, Lost in Space by American Gothic Press had a six-issue mini-series in 2016. These runs depicted the characters from the 1965 television show.
Although Lockhart appeared in 45 episodes of Petticoat Junction, she never appeared in the five-issue series published by Dell in 1963.