Watch a Captain America #1 Comic Book Sell for over $3 Million (VIDEO)

April 10, 2022 Victor Medina

A near-perfect copy of Captain America #1 sold this week for over $3 million, a record for the iconic comic book.

The comic features the first appearance of Captain America, his sidekick Bucky, as well as the Red Skull, and sold at Heritage Auctions in Dallas on Thursday for $3.12 million when the gavel hit. The amount includes the buyer’s premium, and makes the final price one of the top five prices ever achieved on a comic book at auction.

This particular Captain America #1 was highly sought after due to its provenance and condition. It was part of a famous comic collection, The San Francisco Pedigree Collection, and was graded by the Certified Guaranty Company (CGC) at 9.4, near mint with off-white to white pages. That makes it one of the finest-condition copies of the comic book in existence. The Hollywood Reporter says that only three copies of the comic exist in this grade, and only one of them has even been sold at auction. Only one other copy has graded higher, a 9.8 graded issue that is in a private collection and has never been offered for sale.

Even more amazing, this exact comic was also auctioned off by Heritage Auctions three years ago for a mere $915,000. Not a bad return on investment.

The comic was released in December of 1940, a full year before the United States entered World War II. Even so, the cover featured Captain America punching Adolf Hitler, an image that has become iconic in the years since. The issue was released under the Timely Comics banner; the company would not be known as Marvel Comics until 1961, but the success of Captain America laid the groundwork for the superheroes of Marvel yet to come.

Historical Issue

In this video produced before the auction, Heritage Auctions Vice President Barry Sandoval shows off the comic.

Captain America was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, and the issue was so popular, it sold out at newsstands. Even so, copies of the issue are extremely difficult to find today. Heritage Auctions reports they often go as long as a year without having a copy of the comic available to auction.

With Captain America rising to new heights with the overwhelming success of the Marvel movies, comic book values have soared in recent years. Only two other comic books have sold for more than $3 million: an Amazing Fantasy #15 with the first appearance of Spider-Man sold for $3.6 million in September 2021, and an Action Comics #1 sold for $3.2 million in 2014.

This video shows the bidding for the comic. The bidding ended at $2.6 million, but a buyer’s premium pushed the final price into the elite $3 million club.