What appears to have happened, based on subsequent market history, is that the comic was eventually returned to Cage or to his control, and that he then consigned it to ComicConnect for auction approximately six months after its return. The CGC UK account states: “Consigned by Cage to ComicConnect about six months after its return, [it] realized $2.16 million.” The Gulf News 2026 account is consistent: “He later sold it for $2.2 million.” The exact ownership resolution—how the insurance question was settled, what Cage paid or did not pay to his insurer—is not part of the documented public record.
The sale through ComicConnect in November 2011 resolved the ownership question in the most definitive way available to the market: Cage, or someone with authority over the comic, offered it for sale, and it sold. A subsequent sale by the new owner of the comic is not money that Cage received; the 2014 eBay sale for $3.2 million and the January 2026 private sale for $15 million were transactions by subsequent owners of the book. Cage’s documented financial participation ended with the approximately $2.16 million auction result in November 2011.
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THE NOVEMBER 2011 AUCTION: A RECORD BROKEN
The ComicConnect auction of November 30, 2011 produced a winning bid of $2,161,000. At the time, this was the first comic book to sell for more than $2 million at auction, a record within the category. The copy was graded CGC 9.0, which made it one of only two copies of Action Comics No. 1 graded at that level.