The publishing history of the issue is one thing. The physical survival of the copies is another. Comics in 1938 were disposable consumer goods, printed on cheap newswood paper that was never intended to last. Children read them, traded them, left them in garages and attics and basements. The paper yellowed and browned. The staples rusted and stained the interior pages. Humidity warped and degraded the covers. Parents threw them away. The attrition was extraordinary.
Of the approximately 200,000 copies printed, estimates of surviving copies as of the 2010s ranged from roughly 50 to 100. The Comics Buyer’s Guide estimated 50 to 100 in 2012; a 2021 Associated Press report cited approximately 100. Whatever the exact number, the survival rate from original print run to identifiable existing copy is somewhere in the range of one in two thousand to one in four thousand. Most of the survivors are in compromised condition—torn covers, missing pages, severe browning, restoration work that affects their grade.
The grading of comic books—the formal assessment of their condition on a standardized scale—is conducted by several organizations, the most prominent of which is CGC, the Certified Guaranty Company, founded in 2000. CGC grades comics on a scale from 0.5 (Poor) to 10.0 (Gem Mint), encapsulates each graded book in a tamper-evident hard plastic case bearing the grade and certification number, and maintains a population report tracking how many copies of each issue have been graded at each grade level. The grading and encapsulation process is intended to provide both authentication and preservation, creating a trusted record of a book’s condition that the market can rely on.