Action Comics #1: the Final Bid

What's a comic book worth anyway?

I think with today's prices and inflation we forget how much a million dollars actually is. As a young kid, my sister tried to teach me how much $1 million dollars actually was. The main difficulty she had teaching this to me was that I had no idea of the value of a single dollar, let alone one million of them. We were in the kitchen discussing the vastness of it. She explained to me over and over again, a million dollars in single dollar denominations would overflow the kitchen.  It seemed impossible, as impossible as a 1938 comic book selling for $3,207,852. That's Three Million Two Hundred Seven Thousand Eight Hundred Fifty-Two Dollars and Zero Cents. That is more pages than my entire comic book collection compiled together...ten times over.

I watched the bidding, almost from the beginning. The first bid I was able to see was 1.6 million dollars and although it started at .99 cents, it was just two hours later that the bidding was already way past what I could afford. From there, I continued to watch and estimated that the finished price would be 3.1 million. When the CGC graded comic reached over 2 million and paused, I worried I was going to be wrong. Then on the final day, it reached 2,402,000 and with slightly over a minute left, it jumped to 2.6, and then 2.7 million just before it's final bid. At this point, not only was it about who wanted it more, it was also about who could afford it, pre-authorization or not.

Was the second bidder fumbling with the keyboard? Was he rushing to enter 3.5 million? Did the winner acquire a sudden sense of buyers remorse? And at $2.83 an hour, why was my pre-authorization request denied? 

Facebook and Instagram, the two social media outlets I follow most, lit up with multiple comic book news feeds, all with the same story: Record Setting comic book sells for $3,207,852. I almost wish the .38 cents would have accompanied the final bid, as it had lingered on earlier in the bidding.

After 48 bids, the book was sold and I still had two hours left at work to compile my thoughts. I thought about being the first one to write an article and post it seconds after the bidding was over. I was going to have it written days before, so that the only thing I would need to finish was the final bid. Instead, I waited. I wanted it to sink in. 

I think of all the stories I hear from my older customers about all the comic books they threw away, because they were never going to be worth anything anyway. However, if they didn't throw them away, and if the US government didn't have paper drives, or if the comic book burnings brought about by the senate hearings caused by Frederick Wertham's "Seduction of the Innocent" had never occurred, then many mothers and grandmothers would have been right about them not being worth anything.

This book, however, definitely was.

Thanks for Reading

Tnerb