A copy of Action Comics No 1, which features the first appearance of Superman and cost 10 cents in 1938 has sold for a little over $3.2m (£1.9m), the highest price ever paid for a comic book.
Regarded as the holy grail of comic books by collectors, Action Comics No 1 is widely credited for being the beginning of the superhero industry.
Darren Adams, the seller and owner of Pristine Comics shop based near Seattle, told the Washington Post his copy was "a freak-of-nature work".
"I actually held it for a few years – I was so excited about this book," he said. "Most books have a history … but this book was totally off the grid, and nobody knew about it till I made it known."
Adams's copy was particularly well preserved because the original owner kept it in a cedar chest at high altitude in the mountains of West Virginia after purchasing it from a newsstand in 1938. It remained there until he died, and was later sold to Adams for a seven-figure sum.
There are estimated to be 50 to 100 copies of the comic in existence, but only two have been certified with a grade of "9.0" out of 10 by the Certified Guaranty Company (CGC), an independent authority that grades comic books submitted for auction. Adams's is one of them.
"The quality and preservation of this Action No 1 is astounding," said Paul Litch, CGC primary grader. "It is supple, the colours are deep and rich, and the quality of the white pages is amazing for a comic that is 76 years old."
On average, Action Comics No 1 is valued as the most expensive comic book in the world, followed by Detective Comics No 27 – the first Batman comic – and Superman 1, an expanded version of the Man of Steel's 1938 debut.
Copies of Action Comics No 1 have broken sales records many times, selling for $86,000 in 1992, $150,000 in 1997 and $1.5m in 2010.
Actor Nicolas Cage bought the other known "9.0" copy of Action Comics No 1 in 1995, before it was stolen from his Los Angeles home in 2000. It was found undamaged under a pile of magazines in a storage unit in California more than a decade later and sold for $2.1m in 2011. A film based on the theft, titled Action No 1, is reportedly in the works. Adams said he had decided to sell the comic book on eBay, rather than through an auction house, because he "wanted a worldwide audience". A bidding war unfolded between 13 bidders, with the final price of $3,207,852 only $100 higher than the previous bid.
As part of a deal between Adams and eBay, 1% of the sale will be donated to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation for spinal-cord injury and paralysis research. Actor Christopher Reeve played Superman in four films, before suffering from quadriplegia after a horse riding accident in 1995.
Superman was created in 1933 by two Cleveland teenagers, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, but they sold the rights to DC Comics for just $130, receiving $10 for each page they drew.
