Actor Nicolas Cage’s rare and pristine copy of Action Comics No. 1 — which was stolen from his house in 2000 and found in a storage locker in April — sold today for the most money paid for a single comic book: $2.16 million.
Certified Guaranty Company, the leading grader of the quality of collectible comics, recently assigned this copy a grade of 9.0, making it the highest publicly-graded copy of Superman’s first appearance.
Cage’s Action Comics No. 1 first created a stir when an obscure collector brought it to public attention by consigning it to auction at Sotheby’s in 1992. The sudden appearance of a previously unknown high-grade copy of such an important comic is a rare occurrence. Sotheby’s sold it for a then-record $82,500. Cage bought it in 1997 for about $150,000.
The comic was recovered by Los Angeles police in April 2011 after being discovered in a San Fernando Valley storage locker. As news broke of the recovery in April, Cage told ABC News that he would seek to have the comic returned to him.
