I loved them growing up. As an only child my comic books were in near perfect condition. At some point I put them all in a box and placed them up in our attic. After I got out of Air Force and realized how valuable they were becoming I went up in the attic to get mine. What! They were gone. My mother had decided I wouldn't want them anymore.

It’s official. The price of a historic Superman comic has gone Up, Up and Away. According to Heritage Auction, the copy of the first ever issue of “Superman,” discovered in a Californian attic last year has become the most expensive comic ever sold, fetching $9.12 million at auction.

The cost of the original comic book? 10 cents.

 

The question is how much money do you have if you are able to spend over 9 million dollars on a comic book.

 

The same goes for baseball cards. A Honus Wagner card sold for several million. Mickey Mantle rookie card sold for 8 million. We collected them from Topps bubble gum packs for 5 cents then threw them on a step. A leaner collected all the cards. There were probably some valuable cards lost.

 

And then we stuck the cards into the spokes of our bikes to make motorcycle noises.....

 

Yes, that was so cool.

 

I'm near the younger side of this age range and even I understand the potential pain. I can't imagine the NYers who were Mantle or Mays fans, Boston fans with Williams or Cardinal fans with Musial/Gibson who grew up a decade or two before me. I flipped cards on the steps, I put them in my bicycle spokes.

My cousin had the same story. He's grew up idolizing Mantle and had boxes in the attic. At some point, his mother gave them to another cousin for some reason, and then they disappeared during a move.

I have a collection still from the 70s into 80s. It's on my list to bring it to a local shop to get an appraisal and likely unload all but a few cards. I already gave away boxes of common stuff. I also have a variety of sealed boxes of cards (about 20) that I've accumulated. All will get sold except for my box of '93 Upper Deck SP foil. That's the Jeter rookie. The box sells for upwards of $4500-5000. The Covid year shit exploded - that would have been the time to unload everything.

If anyone is a fan of a player from the 70/80 era, let me know. I'm sure I have something I can send your way.

The value of the early stuff is that no one collected, they used them, played with them, rubber-banded them together. So even shitty condition ones are rare and have some nostalgic value. That's not the case anymore. Kids (anyone actually) buy cards to collect. Limited edition colors/schemes/autos.... There was some speculation when I was a kid (buying 100 rookie cards of the same player hoping they were the next star!).. But now, you see a rookie, auto, numbered cards and it's "value" is already set at an inflated number. It's crazy. Paul Skenes RC, in an autographed variant 1 of 1 card sold for over 1 Million.

It's f'in lunacy now. Simple as that.

Side note- I still love ripping open the foil and seeing what's inside. I just limit it to a few times a year. I don't remember a nickel like Ray, but I remember 30 cents, 4 packs for a dollar on the ice cream truck.

 

Gary- My son (b.1983) has a lot of memorabilia from the 1990's (cards, couple boxed sets, signed ball, his glove, pennants, etc.) Likely not much worth more than 5 bucks, but there are still 3 boxes cluttering one of our closets.

 

Jerry…. The 90s things started to come back a bit so he could have some winners. The issue with that generation is the steroid era, so many stars have less value than others.

good t9 hear from you. Hope you and Kathy are doing well,