Rare first Superman comic once stolen from Nicolas Cage sells for $15m

A rare copy of the 1938 comic that introduced Superman to the world has sold to an anonymous collector for $15m (£11.2m).

The private sale of the Action Comics No 1 copy – once stolen from actor Nicolas Cage’s home and returned to him over a decade later – was announced on Friday.

The previous record for the sale of a comic book was set in November, when a pristine Superman No 1 fetched $9.12m at auction. Both sales far exceed the original 10-cent price tags – or around $2.25 in today’s money.

Superman’s debut is one of several tales anthologised in Action Comics No 1, which is widely credited with having defined the superhero genre as we now know it. Fewer than 100 copies are thought to exist.

Friday’s Action Comics sale was negotiated by New York-based Metropolis Collectibles/Comic Connect, which said both the comic book’s owner and the buyer wished to remain anonymous.

The broker said the copy had been graded nine out of a possible 10 points by the Certified Guartanty Company, which specialises in authenticating collectables – making it the joint-highest scoring copy of the comic to date.

The broker said its value was further inflated by its storied association with Hollywood star Cage

The Con Air and National Treasure star purchased this particular copy in 1996 for $150,000 – a record at the time.

But the comic was stolen during a party at Cage’s home in 2000 and only found – inside a storage unit in California – in 2011.

“During that 11-year period, it skyrocketed in value. The thief made Nicolas Cage a lot of money by stealing it,” said Metropolis/ComicConnect CEO Stephen Fishler.

Cage was reunited with the copy and, six months later, sold it at auction for $2.2m.

Fishler compared the comic’s history to the brazen theft of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa from the Louvre museum in Paris in 1911, which transformed the then little-known work to the world’s most famous painting.

“The recovery of the painting made the Mona Lisa go from being just a great Da Vinci painting to a world icon – and that’s what Action No 1 is. An icon of American pop culture.”