CGC-certified Marvel Comics #1 Sells for Over $2.4 Million

A historically significant copy of Marvel Comics #1 that was graded by Certified Guaranty Company® (CGC®) has sold for a phenomenal $2,427,777. The result, achieved in a ComicConnect auction on March 17, 2022, was a new record for this title.

Graded CGC 9.2, this copy is pedigreed as the “Pay Copy” because the editor used it to record check payments to contributors on seven pages inside the book and on the cover. The list includes Carl Burgos, who was paid $128 in 1939 for his 16 pages of the Human Torch — the equivalent of $2,612 in 2022.

Click image to enlarge.

Published by Timely Comics (a predecessor of Marvel Entertainment), Marvel Comics #1 includes the first appearance of the Human Torch. This Human Torch (which is different from the character of the same name from the Fantastic Four) was an android named Jim Hammond with the ability to engulf his body with fire. Decades later, the Golden Age character was revived by Marvel when they revealed the Vision, an android who was built using “spare parts” from the Human Torch and who later joined the Avengers.

This issue also includes the first appearance of Ka-Zar, Angel, Jungle Terror and Masked Raider, and the origin of Namor the Sub-Mariner. The Pay Copy ledger shows Namor creator Bill Everett was paid $96 for his contribution of 12 pages.

Upon its release in November 1939, this book sold 80,000 copies and convinced its publisher to hire Joe Simon and Jack Kirby to create Captain America Comics #1. Later it would serve as the title inspiration when Timely Comics became “Marvel Comics” in 1961.

This Pay Copy of Marvel Comics #1 was once the most expensive comic ever sold when it went for $350,000 in 2002. The current record holder for any comic book is an Amazing Fantasy #15 graded CGC 9.6 that sold for $3.6 million in September 2021. Other top books include an Action Comics #1 graded CGC 8.5 that sold for $3.25 million in 2021; an Action Comics #1 graded CGC 9.0 that sold for $3.2 million in 2014; and a Superman #1 that sold for $2.6 million in 2021.

Other highlights in the March 2022 ComicConnect sale included:

• an Amazing Fantasy #15 graded CGC 8.0 that realized $520,000
• a Marvel Comics #1 graded CGC 2.5 that realized $363,527
• a Captain America Comics #1 graded CGC 7.0 that realized $339,760
• a Batman #1 graded CGC 2.4 that realized $270,000
• an Incredible Hulk #1 graded CGC 8.5 that realized $245,000