As the saying goes, records are meant to be broken -- and boy, how the mighty have been falling during the past few days! Gustav Klimt's "Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer" sold at Sotheby's for $236.4 million on November 18th setting a new world record for the most expensive modern artwork ever sold. Two days later, on November 20th, a Frida Kahlo self-portrait sold for $54.7 million, setting a new record for a female artist. On that same day — and most relevant for the comic book community — a CGC 9.0 copy of Superman #1 sold for a record-setting $9.12 million on Heritage Auctions:
Yes, you read that right — we just witnessed the sale of the most expensive comic book of all time. And it didn’t just barely beat the previous record — a $6M sale of a CGC 8.5 Pedigree copy of Action Comics #1 in April 2024 — it absolutely shattered it by more than $3.1M!
This is just my opinion, but I think this sale caught many in our community by surprise. Sure, this is the top-of-the-Census copy of Superman #1, the first self-titled series for Superman; however, as we all know, this isn't his first appearance. In fact, it's far from it -- Superman had already appeared fourteen times previously in Action Comics #s 1-14. If I were offered a choice (I wish!), I'd definitely prefer the CGC 8.5 Pedigree copy of Action Comics #1 for $6 million over the 9.0 copy of Superman #1 for $9.12 million.
Am I right?
Will we ever see another comic sell for more than $9.12M? The only two candidates that come to mind are the two CGC 9.0s of Action Comics #1 that exist on the CGC Census. Both of these top-of-the-Census 9.0s have sold within the past 15 years for $2.16 million and $3.2 million:
If I were an owner of one of these 9.0s, the $9.21 million sale for a Superman #1 would definitely encourage me to consign my copy to Heritage! In this current environment, we might very well see the first comic book sale to sell for more than $10 million.
Is something in the water? This recent string of mind-blowing sales is reminiscent of the flood of record-setting sales we saw for collectibles during the pandemic. What’s the cause? As I've speculated over the past year, the stock market has been soaring for nearly three years now. Since the start of 2023, the S&P 500 has risen approximately 70.3%. It has 92 record highs since 2024. And these results don’t even include the reinvestment of potential dividends. In other words, investors have much more money than they did three years ago, and some may be locking in profits from their stock portfolio and may be choosing to invest it elsewhere.
Whatever the reason may be, after years of being mired in a bear market, it’s refreshing to see (at least in the short-term) renewed interest in collectibles.
