Last Christmas, while cleaning out their late mother's loft in California, three brothers made a life-changing discovery under a stack of faded newspapers: one of the first Superman comics ever created.
The original copy of the first edition of the adventures of the Man of Steel, published in June 1939, was in amazingly pristine condition.
It has now become the most expensive comic book ever sold, earning $9.12 million (£7 million) at auction.
Texas-based Heritage Auctions, which held the sale Thursday, called it “the pinnacle of comic book collecting.”
In 2024, the brothers found six comics, including Superman #1, in the attic under a stack of newspapers inside a cardboard box and surrounded by cobwebs, according to Heritage.
They waited several months before contacting the auction house, but once they did, Heritage Auctions Vice President Lon Allen visited them in San Francisco a few days later, the auction house said.
The brothers, who chose not to reveal their names, “are between 50 and 60 years old, and their mother always told them she had an expensive comic book collection but never showed them,” Mr. Allen said.
“It’s a variation on the old “Mom threw away my comics” story.
According to Heritage, their mother had kept the comics since she and her brother bought them between the Great Depression and the start of World War II.
Mr. Allen added that northern California's cool climate is ideal for preserving old paper.
“If it was in an attic here in Texas, it would be destroyed,” he said.
This helped CGC, a major independent comic book rating service, give this copy of Superman #1 a score of 9.0 on a scale of 10, surpassing the previous record of 8.5.
And with a selling price of over $9 million, including buyer's premium, Superman #1 easily surpassed the previous highest-priced comic book ever sold by $3 million.
“Action Comics No. 1,” the 1938 work that debuted Superman, sold for $6 million last year.
In a press release from the auction house, the younger brother said that the box remained forgotten in the attic.
“Over time, life has brought a number of losses and changes,” he said. “The demands of daily survival took center stage, and the box of comic books, once carefully and deliberately set aside, was forgotten. Until last Christmas.”
He added: “This is not just a story about old paper and ink. It was never just a collector's item.
“It’s a testament to memory, family and the unexpected ways the past comes back to us.”
