Why this first issue of Superman sold for $1 million

Today marks history in the comic book world!! Action Comic’s 1938 edition of No. 1 issue featuring Superman sold for $1 million. Just one year before, somebody else sold this same comic for a price of $317,000, so why did this one sell for a lot more?

If you look at the image of the comic book above you will see CGC 8.0. CGC stands for the The Comics Guaranty Company. This company will take your comic books that you submit to them and grade the condition of your comic against a strict set of guidelines. The comic is then returned to you in a protective cover with a score from one to ten. These “graded” comics tend to get more money because they are proven to be in a good condition.

The number that the comic book is given directly associates the condition the comic book is in. Their are 8 categories that the Comic Guaranty Company can place your comic book in:

Mint= 10-9.8
Near Mint= 9.8-9.0
Very Fine= 9.0-7.0
Fine= 7.0-5.0
Very Good= 5.0-3.0
Good= 3.0-1.5
Fair=1.5-1.0
Poor=1.0-0

Again this comic book was rated 8.0 which means the condition according to the CGC is Very Fine. Just to give you a deeper look, their are fewer than 100 copies of Action Comics #1 are known to exist. Five of these copies have a grade above 4.0. The highest grade for this rare Superman Action Comic is 8.5. There is one known uncertified copy with a higher grade, the famous Edgar Church/Mile High copy. (This information came from Wikipedia.com)

The lucky person who has the 1938 edition of Action Comics No. 1 that is graded at 8.5 has gotten some bargaining power!