April showers bring May flowers, and they also bring the end of Goldin's March Pop Culture Elite Auction! Featuring hundreds of unique pieces for every type of collector, this month's auction is truly a treasure trove of goodies. With only a few days left to bid, let's take a look at what items stand out from the rest!
1994 Factory-Sealed Akira Trading Card Box
If you didn't live through being an anime fan in the 1980s or 1990s, let me tell you. The genre was just starting to take off in America, in part because of movies such as Akira and publishing houses such as Viz. Yet while finding VHS's and Western format manga was fairly easy thanks to your local comic book shop and Suncoat, finding anime merchandise for sale was a thrill. Trading cards helped fill in that gap in those early years.
This box of factory-sealed Akira trading cards is a great find. This box contains 36 packs, with 10 cards each. This box appears to be in great condition with general wear. A similar box (in worse condition) sold on eBay for $349 in March 2024 - I see no reason why this one wouldn't go higher.
Chopping Mall IGS Signature 9 Mint
1986's Chopping Mall is a personal favorite horror movie. Jim Wynorski's techno-horror film has become an overall genre favorite and is still as relevant today as it was 38 years ago. Chopping Mall follows a group of teens trying to survive a night inside the mall they work in as they are hunted by the mall's new security robot team. The robots are hacked before going online, resulting in them brutally killing any human to cross their path. This movie is beautiful and gory, with some of the best special FX makeup and over-the-top acting one would expect from an 80s horror movie.
This sealed IGS signature 9 mint copy is outstanding. Signed by the VHS cover artist Corey Wolf, this would be a great addition to a horror movie collection. Ungraded, sealed copies of Chopping Mall are very desirable to collectors and can fetch over $200 in auction. As this is a signed and graded copy, it is possible this could end up on the high end.
What else can we really say about this book? By now we all know this is one of the most desirable grail books for almost every collector. Regardless of the grade, this book commands serious money. To date, CGC has only graded 180 copies, with 76 receiving the universal blue label. Superman #1 set the standard for superhero books by being the first comic to use the hero's name as the title. We all know how significant this book is, and how seldom we see them come up for sale!
This CGC blue label 1.5 has off-white to white pages, and while this book has been clearly loved, it still holds up. The one-year average on similarly graded books is $153,125 with prices trending up. Out of all the comics in this auction, this is the one to keep an eye on!
