For Action Comics No. 1, the CGC population report as of 2011 showed six graded copies in Very Good condition (4.0) or better. Above that threshold, the numbers dropped steeply. The Wikipedia account of the issue notes that as of 2011, only one copy was graded VF/NM (Very Fine/Near Mint), which on CGC’s scale maps to 9.0. That copy—the copy that Cage had owned—was among the two highest-graded surviving examples of the issue.
A CGC 9.0 grade for a comic from 1938, surviving in that condition for more than seven decades, is genuinely remarkable. Paper from that era did not hold up well. A 9.0 copy means the cover is bright and clean, the spine is tight, the interior pages show minimal aging or tanning, the staples are rust-free or nearly so. It means that whoever owned the copy in the early decades either did not read it or handled it with extraordinary care and stored it under conditions that prevented the usual deterioration. How it survived in that condition is not documented—the provenance before it entered the commercial market in 1992 is not part of the available public record.
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THE COMIC’S DOCUMENTED MARKET HISTORY BEFORE CAGE
The first documented sale of this specific copy of Action Comics No. 1—the one that would eventually enter Cage’s collection—was at a Sotheby’s auction in 1992, where it sold for more than $82,000. The CGC UK account gives the figure as “more than $82,000” and notes this was the most expensive comic book sold at that time, a record for the medium.