Splash page from Batman #1 gets $660 on eBay. Details here.
I got an email from a friend about this. My buddy thought this was crazy but I’m going to try to look at it from a different perspective.
This torn out page is from Batman #1, Spring 1940. Batman #1 is most famous for introducing perhaps the greatest comic book villain of all time The Joker.
The Joker does not appear on the cover of Batman #1. The very 1st appearance of The Joker ever, anywhere was on this splash page. This fact must be important, no?
I remember a year or so ago they were auctioning off leaves of Action Comics #1, those at least had 4 pages on them and they were getting in the thousands. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think the leaf that contained the cover image got something like $4,000.
Look, 2.o grade copies of Batman #1 get well over $10,000. Here someone picked up what is surely the most important page in the book, indeed one of the most important pages in the history of comics for $660.
If the buyer is happy, I’m happy for the buyer.
Have people lost their senses or is this a good deal? I’d love to see what you think.
i think CGC has now become a joke. they are encapsulating comic PAGES now? come on… single pages? wtf. first they can distinguish between grades at 9.0, 9.2, 9.4, 9.6, 9.8, 9.9 and 10.0, but not at lower grades… i mean .. 9.8, 9.9 and 10.0? please… now single pages?
there is no question that page has some value. it’s a beautiful panel of the joker. and as you say, if someone is willing to pay $660, then all power to him.
To be fair to CGC they put the page in one of their slabs and marked it NG or No Grade. The seller knew slabbing would help sell it and CGC did it.
As a comic collector my knee-jerk reaction is to say it’s worthless.
As a student of history, I say it’s an artifact. Not nearly as good as having the whole issue — obviously — but would anyone throw away a page from a 17th-Century century printing of Hamlet? No, it would go in a museum.
The earliest copies of most of the great works of literature exist only in partial or dilapidated form. I’m not saying this comic page (or even the whole comic) is on the level of Shakespeare or Milton or anything. And obviously there are other, complete copies of Batman #1 out there…but this lone page is still interesting.
The real question is why they used a generic pic of the Dynamic Duo on the cover. It’s an iconic cover now, but how much more so if they had shown the Joker? (Or Catwoman, who also appears inside).
Encapsulating pages does seem trivial at first but as Thor mentions some pages are like artifacts. A see the CGC case as verifying the authenticity of the page, this is probably a valued service considering buyers will be dishing out serious money for these pages.
1st appearances of the major characters form the Golden Age like Archie, Superman, Batman, Captain America, Human Torch etc are out of reach price wise for 90% of us. Perhaps this is the future of collecting?
“Hey I just picked up page 7 of Pep Comics #22, sweeeet” !
call me crazy but I would actually consider purchasing this if I saw it. This single page is responsible for so much in not just Batman but comic history in general. As stated 90% of us cant afford Batman #1 so the buyer purchased what they could afford to get a part of the history. Power to the buyer
I’d go for it. Don’t know how much I would pay, probably less than $100, but I would like to have it. As for CGC’s contribution, they just did their job and encapsulated it at the request of the customer and to verify its authenticity. CGC is used by a lot of dealers, buyers and collectors for their own purposes that the company really can’t be blamed for. They spread enough evil of their own, but I don’t think so in this case. Off the bat, I might give $50 for it, but I’m not one of the idle rich with more money than sense.
Once comics are slabbed the inner pages are “lost forever”. This is a good way to enjoy the art of this page. Kudos for the idea. Thinking outside the slab (pun intended).
This seller is a Joker w/ his amateur restorations but a current listing made me go back to this post to see what the NG CGC book went for…. 1900 bux for a raw one as of 3-11-14. Wild.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/251463863584?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649
I’ve been noticing and thinking about this trend too. On the one hand, I have no problem with buying a small piece of a book I could never afford, but I am concerned that there’s people out there taking low-grade, cover less, and/or largely complete low grade keys and figuring, “Hey I can get more if I chunk this out.” I understand some people collect primarily to make money, but I hate to see that at the expense of a rare book of historical significance.