Copy Of ‘Marvel Comics’ #1 Sells For $2.4 Million

Marvel Comics #1 is one of the trinity of golden age comics – and this copy is even more special.

Marvel Comics #1 is not be as well known as 1938’s Action Comics #1 or 1939’s Detective Comics #27. It still holds a very important place in comics history. It was the first to be published by Timely Comics (who became Marvel Comics in 1961) and hit newsstands in 1939. This is the humble start of a company worth $10 billion today.

The book includes the first appearances of Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch. The art style effortlessly blends traditional pulp covers and the new, stark capes style thanks to Bill Everett, Carl Burgos, and Ben Thompson. It is a key issue of the Golden Age of Comics.

Via Marvel

Marvel Comics #1 “Pay Copy” Sells at Auction

Geek collectibles are all the rage right now, with MtG cards and video game cartridges going for record-high prices. The latest item on the block brings the focus back to comics – a high-grade copy of Marvel’s first comic went for $2,427,800 to an anonymous buyer last week.

his copy has a special pedigree that helped boost the price. It’s known as the”‘pay copy.”

The New York Times reports it was once owned by Lloyd Jacquet. He was the owner of Funnies Inc., which sold artwork to comic book publishers. This copy of Marvel Comics #1 has Jacquet’s notes on how much his company owed the book’s artists. An expert told the NYT said that it’s like, “owning the pay copy of Marvel Comics No. 1 would be like owning a first-edition Charles Dickens novel in which he documented his royalties.”

You can still read Jacquet’s notes on the cover. They paid $25 to Frank R. Paul for drawing the cover of a book now worth nearly 100,000 times as much.