By 1992, the comic book collecting market had been developing for about two decades as an organized field. The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, the standard industry reference, had been published since 1970. Dealers had established themselves as intermediaries between the estates and attics where old comics survived and the collectors who wanted them. Grading standards existed, though they were not yet formalized in the way that CGC would later standardize them—CGC was not founded until 2000. The 1992 Sotheby’s sale represented the market’s assessment, at that moment, of what the highest-surviving-condition copy of the most important comic book in history was worth.
$82,000 was a significant sum for a publication that had originally cost ten cents and been intended for immediate disposal. It was also, in retrospect, an undervaluation, though that is the nature of markets for unique objects at moments before the market has fully formed around them.
Stephen Fishler, then and now the principal of Metropolis Collectibles in New York, was involved in the comic’s subsequent history. By his account, he sold the copy to Nicolas Cage in the mid-1990s for $150,000—almost double the 1992 Sotheby’s price in approximately three years. This trajectory reflected a general appreciation in the market for high-grade Golden Age comics during the 1990s, driven by growing collector interest and a maturing market infrastructure. The comic had gained in documented value at every transaction since it first entered the commercial record.
When Cage acquired it for $150,000, he was buying an object that had already demonstrated its ability to appreciate in value, though appreciation was presumably not his primary motivation. He was buying the copy of Action Comics No. 1 in the best known surviving condition, the issue that introduced the character after whom he would later name his son, for a price that represented a substantial multiple of the previous high-water mark for any comic book.