Rare Superman Debut Comic Found In Abandoned House Wall

Action Comics No. 1, an extremely rare comic and Superman’s debut issue, was found inside the wall of an abandoned home in Minnesota, TODAY reports.

David Gonzalez, a home remodeler, discovered the issue while he was gutting a house in Elbow Lake, Minnesota. The 34-year-old spotted the issue among old newspapers being used as home insulation and knew right away that it was worth something.

“I knew it was worth money,” Gonzalez recalled. “But I had no idea how much.”

Action Comics No. 1, printed in June of 1938, is the debut issue of the flagship DC Comics character known as Superman. The cover depicts the superhero lifting a car over his head while bystanders flee, and is considered to be one of the most iconic images representing the character.

Even though it wasn’t in the best condition, the comic is worth a lot more than the entire house it was discovered in. An online auction for the issue has reached $127,000 with just 34 bids, and there are still 19 more days left to place a claim on the comic.

Gonzalez said that he paid just over $10,000 for the run-down house, which he planned to fix up and flip for a profit.

As we said above, the condition of the issue isn’t the best – it’s about a 1.5 on a 10-point scale. However, it is considered “the most important comic book in the history of comic books” and “the introduction of the archetype of all other heroes to come,” so it was primed to fetch a pretty penny regardless of its mint status.

For context, a pristine copy with a condition rating of 9.0 sold for $2.16 million at a recent auction. That’ll put the kids through school.

Comic auctioneer and expert Vincent Zurzolo said that all copies of Action Comics No. 1 are already accounted for and documented, which make this find so special.

“It’s so hard for anyone to fathom that, in this day and age, you could still discover a comic book that nobody has known about because this book was in a wall of a house for more than 70 years,” he said. “It’s pretty miraculous that it even survived and it’s only had one owner.”

How much would you pay for an old, beat-up copy of Action Comics No. 1?