A Victoria woman bought it for $450 in 1983.
Its value has since been appraised at $5,000, $10,000 and $50,000, and it could be worth up to $1 million now.
No, it’s not a single-family home. It’s Amazing Fantasy #15, a 1962 comic that contains the first appearance of none other than Spider-Man. And it’s for sale.
Coverage of comic book characters on Globalnews.ca:
The comic tells Spider-Man’s origin story — of teenager Peter Parker, and how he was bitten by a spider that turned him into a web-slinging superhero.
Gareth Gaudin worked at the comic shop where the woman bought the comic and has stayed in touch since she purchased it in the early 1980s.
Now he’s the owner of Victoria’s Legends Comics and Books and is trying to help her sell it.
“It’s considered the third most valuable comic after Superman and Batman’s first appearances,” Gaudin told Global News.
“It’s an iconic comic book, it’s beautifully drawn, the cover’s brilliant and it’s got the original and first appearance of a character that everyone knows and loves.”
Gaudin said only three comics have ever been worth $1-million, “and this is one of them.”
He said it would be “all well and good” if he found a buyer.
But he has a different idea: he’d like to arrange to buy the comic from its owner so that people can see it in museums and art galleries.
To that end, he has set up a PayPal account where anyone can chip in as little as $1 in an effort to buy the comic.
“I think it’s a historic artifact that can be seen,” Gaudin said.
The comic itself is in excellent, but not mint condition, he added.
It has a “ding” here and there, but “it’s the nicest one I’ve ever seen and the nicest one I probably will ever see.”
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