Action Figure Insider » Amazing Spider-Man #1 Sells for Amazing Price in Hake’s Auction
When Stan Lee and Steve Ditko brought life to Spider-Man, he was far from a sure-fire hit. A teenage hero had never headlined a book before, as they were usually sidekicks. But his debut in Amazing Fantasy #15 was well-received – so well-received that he was given his own title a year later. Now, the first issue of that title has set an auction house record for the highest price paid for that issue in 9.6, via Hake’s Auctions.
Featuring the first appearances of J. Jonah Jameson and The Chameleon, as well as a guest appearance by the Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man #1 is the definition of a “key issue”. This copy, graded 9.6 NM+ by the CGC, came from the John B. Goodrich Collection, where it had resided for 25 years. Recently certified, there are only two copies graded higher (CGC 9.8) according to the CGC Census, and a current total of 4,688 graded copies in existence.
The issue pulled in $520,380, nearly $200,000 more than another 9.6-graded copy that sold in November of 2022. That copy had off-white pages, while this one had white pages – a key difference, even though those pages will never be seen again.
“The result does not surprise me,” said Alex Winter, President of Hake’s Auctions. “You are talking about one of the key issues in all of comics, regardless of era. Add to it all the near impossible-to-get grade of 9.6 and that is what spurred the aggressive bidding. In the end the winning bidder now has one of the top copies in the world of one of the most important books in the Marvel Universe.”
The most recent Hake’s Auction also featured copies of Amazing Fantasy #15 (first Spider-Man), Amazing Spider-Man #2-20 (first appearances of many iconic Spidey villains), Amazing Spider-Man #50 (first Kingpin), Amazing Spider-Man #101 (first Morbius), Amazing Spider-Man #129 (first Punisher), Daredevil #1-7 (first Daredevil) and Incredible Hulk #181-182 (first Wolverine), all from the John B. Goodrich Collection.
Daniel Pickett
AFi founder and Editor-In-Chief Daniel “Julius Marx” Pickett has been around toys his whole life. The first line he ever collected was Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes line back in the 70s. He has been surrounded by collectables ever since.
In 1999 he was confounded by a lack of information and news about some of his favorite toy lines he was collecting. Since he couldn’t find the information he decided to pursue it himself thinking other people might also be interested in the same news. He started writing a weekly column on the toy industry and action figure for a toy news site and in a years time he tripled the sites daily traffic with his updates, reviews and product features.
He built relationships with every major toy manufacturer and many sculptors, painters and mold makers. He grew his hobby into a world wide expertise that the industry has embraced.
In 2004 he teamed up with his toy buddy Jason “ToyOtter” Geyer and they created their own website www.ActionFigureInsider.com.
Daniel has been quoted in both industry and mass media press outlets. Over the years Daniel and AFi have been sought out as experts in the field. Daniel was regularly featured on “Attack of the Show” on the G4 network as the primary contributor to their “Mint On Card” segment, and our front page has been linked to from USA Today’s
“Pop Candy” Blog twice. Daniel’s content has also been featured on Bloomberg News, MSNBC.com, Time.com, The Wall Street Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, CNN.com, AssociatedPress.com
Wired.com, Fark.com, Boing-Boing, Gizmodo.com, Ain’t It Cool News, the Official
Star Wars blog, Geekologie, G4, CNet and Toy Fare magazine, among many
others. He has consulted on toy lines, books, documentaries and TV shows.
But all of that really just sounds snooty and “tootin’ his own horn” – the long and short of it is that Daniel loves toys and he LOVES talking about them.
