Holy Trustfunds, Batman!

ELLWOOD CITY, Pa. - Holy collectibles, Batman!

A near-mint copy of Detective Comics No. 27, a pre-Second World War comic featuring Batman's debut, was recently found in an attic and sold to a local collector.

The comic is considered to be the second-most valuable available and can fetch up to US$500,000. The only comic considered more valuable is Action Comics No. 1, in which Superman makes his first appearance.

Collector Todd McDevitt said the Batman issue he bought is worth about $250,000, but he won't say exactly how much he paid or who sold it to him.

"It was a typical story of someone cleaning up junk in their attic and finding an old comic book and wondering if this was one of those ones that was worth a lot of money," McDevitt told the Beaver County Times.

McDevitt, owner of the Pittsburgh region's five New Dimension Comics stores, said he has been saving money since 1986 so that he could buy a valuable comic when it appeared.

When the seller walked in with the Batman issue, "my eyes almost popped out of my head," McDevitt said.

"I guess I should have been more reserved, but I'm not a very good poker player," he said.

Experts estimate there are between 20 and a few hundred copies of the Batman debut.

McDevitt's comic now sits safely in an airtight bag in a bank vault. On occasion, he takes it out to show friends and customers.

"I've been toying with the idea of reading it, but I haven't yet," he said. "I'm going to savour it.


No matter who you are, when you see one of these stories of a comic book selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars,it has to freak you out. The guy has been saving money since 1986 in the hopes of one day... wait for it.... buying a comic. I know that collectors are collectors and its a type of mania that will someday rank up there with pedophiles and necrophiliacs( some would say they are already combined thanks to you sick beanie baby lot!) on the can't help themselves scale. Being an enthusiast is cool, that's what keeps the industries going. But when you see dudes with tons of money making crazy bids on things and hoarding them just to stroke their own ego and POSSESS, you have to kind of sit back and go - is this 70 year old, mint condition, ground breaking comic of which there will probably not be more copies ever found in this condition - worth 5 to 10 years salary of an average working class Joe? I would be really interested in knowing what the people who found the comic end up doing with the $200,000.They've probably always had their eye on those Royal Dalton figurines of Wayne and Garth on Ebay......