Some comic book collectors turn their noses up at collecting Modern Age (1992 to today) keys due to overproduction, use of gimmicks (e.g., foil and variant covers), and volatility in resale values. But there are a handful of Modern Age key issues that still demand a huge premium even among the wealthiest and most selective of collectors.
One of these issues is the 1:100 Gabriele Dell'Otto cover for Amazing Spider-Man #667. Published in October 2011, this major Modern Age key isn't valuable because it features the first appearance of a major character, but primarily due to its rarity. It's a 1 in 100 retailer incentive variant, meaning comic dealers had to purchase 100 copies of Cover A in order to receive one copy of these Dell'Otto variant covers.
You know there's nothing significant about the story itself when a CGC 9.8 of Cover A only sells for around $70; however, a 9.8 of the 1 in 100 variant could sell for approximately 500x as much! Case in point: this yellow label 9.8 of this variant recently sold for a whopping $31,200 at Heritage Auctions on June 29, 2025:
While not a record-setting sale (towards the end of the "comic boom," a universal blue label sold for $43,200 in June 2022), the sale is still impressive when you consider it occurred during the throes of a long-running bear market.
Just three months ago, another yellow label CGC 9.8 sold for $16,874 at a Hake's auction. This might support a bull's thesis and momentum for this particular variant, but this yellow label was signed by Humberto Ramos and Dan Slott (and not by Gabriele Dell'Otto). Lastly, Ramos and Slott's signatures were verified by JSA and not verified at an official CGC signing events which may have also impacted the final sales price.
Will the top of the CGC Census Ultimate Fallout #4 set any sales records?
Another Modern Age key issue that could also generate a huge amount of demand and a $20,000+ sale is a CGC 9.9 copy of Ultimate Fallout #4. The only 9.9 in existence is currently up for auction at ComicLink:
Arguably the most significant issue of the Modern Age since it features the first appearance of Miles Morales, this is the rare Modern Age issue where demand can meet the vast amount of supply available (over 17,000 universal blue label copies on the CGC Census). According to GoCollect, the FMV of a 9.8 copy of Ultimate Fallout #4 is $900. Ryan at Automatic Comics estimates that 9.9s generally sell for about 20x the FMV of 9.8s. Using that rule of thumb, this 9.9 of Ultimate Fallout #4 could sell for around $18,000. As additional context, the highest sale for a 9.8 occurred back in February 2022, during the tail end of the "comic boom," for $4000.
