It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a new record after Man of Steel comic found in a California home is auctioned.
Heritage Auctions / HA.comWhile cleaning out their late mother's California attic last Christmas, three brothers made a life-changing discovery under a pile of faded newspapers: one of the first Superman comics ever made.
An original copy of the June 1939 first edition on the Man of Steel's adventures, it was in a remarkably pristine condition.
Now it has become the highest-priced comic book ever sold, fetching $9.12m (£7m) at auction.
Texas-based Heritage Auctions, which hosted Thursday's sale, called it the "pinnacle of comic collecting".
Heritage Auctions / HA.comThe brothers found six comic books, including Superman #1, in the attic underneath a stack of newspapers inside a cardboard box and surrounded by cobwebs in 2024, Heritage said in a press release.
They waited a few months before contacting the auction house, but once they did, Heritage Auctions vice-president Lon Allen visited them in San Francisco within days, according to the auction house.
The brothers, who have chosen to withhold their names, are "in their 50s and 60s, and their mom had always told them she had an expensive comics collection but never showed them", Mr Allen said in Heritage's press release.
"It's a twist on the old 'Mom threw away my comics' story."
Their mother had held on to the comic books since she and her brother bought them between the Great Depression and the beginning of World War Two, Heritage said.
Mr Allen added that the cool northern California climate was perfect for preserving old paper.
"If it had been in an attic here in Texas, it would have been ruined," he said.
That helped CGC, a large third-party comics grading service, give this copy of Superman #1 a 9.0 rating on a 10-point scale, topping the previous record of 8.5.
And at its sale price of over $9m, including buyer's premium, Superman #1 easily beat the previous highest-priced comic book ever sold by $3m.
Action Comics No. 1, the 1938 work that first introduced Superman, sold for $6m last year.
The youngest brother said in Heritage's press release that the box had remained forgotten in the back of attic.
"As the years unfolded, life brought about a series of losses and changes," he said. "The demands of everyday survival took centre stage, and the box of comics, once set aside with care and intention, was forgotten. Until last Christmas."
He added: "This isn't simply a story about old paper and ink. This was never just about a collectible.
"This is a testament to memory, family and the unexpected ways the past finds its way back to us."
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"He added: "This isn't simply a story about old paper and ink. This was never just about a collectible.
"This is a testament to memory, family and the unexpected ways the past finds its way back to us." """ Men going extreme in sentimental when they just sold a $9M collectible :).
He added: “This isn’t simply a blurb of words and phrases. This is not just a stock statement from an LLM.
This is a testament to outsourcing, laziness and the unexpected ways technology finds ways to change every press release.”
I've been pressing minus twice to type a dash on Mac OS for so long I've forgotten when I started. People are pointing it out to me more and more every day. I think my writing is distinct enough from an LLM for most people, but there's certainly a growing contingent that sees a telltale and assumes everything must be AI generated.
Most (all?) keyboards I've used only have a combined hyphen‐minus key (-) which is distinct from a dash (—) and isn't quite a hyphen (‐), so I get why most people don't care. All font dependent as well to add to the fun, and my examples here render differently in the textbox and the comment!
Yeah it actually saddens me a little, if using good and correct typography will be avoided because of LLM.
By pardon_me 2025-11-2213:11 It's already happened unfortunately. LLMs learned to write correctly from people who write correctly. Those people are now being blamed for sounding like AI, when AI actually sounds like them (and probably learned from their work without permission). To avoid they, they write differently.
Em dashes are still appropriate for articles, journals, scientific papers, and other academic or professional writing.
In social media comments they came across as pompous even before LLMs and werent particularly appropriate for casual comments.
Though to be fair some people enjoy coming across as pompous and embrace the 'better than the peasants and their lowly minus sign use' attitude. Makes them feel special or as if their writing is markedly better than those without fancy punctuation. (It isnt).
Also yes, im describing two writers i know that are adamant about the em dash being 'a sign of an intellectual wtiter'...they are insufferable pricks.
By sgarland 2025-11-2213:13 I use em dashes for the same reason that I use semicolons: it’s how I’m hearing the sentence in my head as I’m typing it.
I think it’s a bit of a stretch to call a part of grammar pompous. It’d be analogous with me calling your post lazy due to its various typos — I’m not, I just found the comparison apt.
I would love to know what sequence of characters you normally use in place of an em-dash to express the same nuance of relationship and timing.
Not the GP, but I often just use commas and parenthetical asides (like this).
It's a different stylistic choice (em dashes are nice and all), but it's not how I think, and my writing reflects how I think.
I also will often use the fabled semicolon. It's easy to use with contrasting statements, but that's not its only use; I can use them in some situations to elaborate where em dashes are used.
I'm not saying they are a perfect replacement for em dashes (again, em dashes are cool), but it's just always been my personal style.
By RHSeeger 2025-11-2217:15 > I also will often use the fabled semicolon
I regularly use the semicolon, especially in a sentence where this are commas use in another way. In my mind, a semicolon is a "greater" separator than a comma; used to separate parts of thought in the same sentence (vs grouping of items or a pause).
By Forgeties79 2025-11-2213:21 The problem to me doesn’t seem to be the em dashes but rather the multiple people around you that actively talk about “being an intellectual writer“ and how they need to signal it with their choice of punctuation. Frankly they sound ridiculous. But again, that has nothing to do with the actual punctuation itself. Writing off a writing tool because of two people you agree are ridiculous doesn’t seem like the right way to respond to their behavior.
I’ve used it for literally decades for both formal and informal writing. On social media and in text messages. It is a very useful way to communicate/pace your sentences.
If people only fixate on your emdashes, they're just lazy. The bigger AI smell to me is the "it's not X — it's Y," of which the emdash is a part.
They’re using a crude linear model to identify AI output, which is not that much different from that which the AI safety industry is peddling, or the people that sell solutions to identify AI output.
You can’t reliably predict the output of a non-linear model with a simple linear model, no matter how hard you wish it.
By mvkel 2025-11-2217:49 Perfectly said. The safety industry is such a grift, propped up by ignorant VCs who don't want to miss their rocket ship
By khazhoux 2025-11-2223:22 That’s not an LLM indicator —it’s totally acceptable grammar.
I've been using it as well for a long while (though using option shift -), but I don't care what people think. I won't change my style to appease Temu Sherlocks, or anyone really. How I write doesn't change the value of the message. I invite you to join me in not giving a crap.
By mjlee 2025-11-2211:58 It wasn't clear from my comment, but I absolutely don't care and I'm going to keep typing how I type.
By Macha 2025-11-2213:14 I’d actually just figured out the compose binding to type it on Linux just before chatgpt got popular
Ive had to change how i write so that people don’t think its chat bot. Probably more a me thing but it has sadly ruined my heavy use of m dash and personal style. Small minority i know.
By adi_kurian 2025-11-2211:27 I wouldn't bother. Who gives a flying fuck. The only people I know talking about it aren't particularly good at writing anyway.
By acheron 2025-11-2213:14 “Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks.”
By ccppurcell 2025-11-226:442 reply Why this matters: <bullet point list>.
By imiric 2025-11-229:20 You're absolutely right!
By kineticdaffodil 2025-11-2213:26 [dead]
Reminded me of an exchange I saw decades ago in some TV show or movie (I forget where it was from but it stayed with me):
Person A: “We’re going to be so rich.”
Person B: “How many times do I have to tell you? It’s not about the money.”
Person A: “It’s about all the things we’ll be able to buy with it.”
Person B: “Exactly.”
By retSava 2025-11-2213:31 Also, from a classic that is finally getting a sequel: Spaceballs!
-We're not doing this for the money... -... we're not? -We're doing this for a SHITTON of money!
By onionisafruit 2025-11-2213:231 reply The Jerk?
By latexr 2025-11-2216:35 Could be. I honestly have zero idea. I don’t even recall the people or the setting, just the exchange.
By onionisafruit 2025-11-2213:39 To them I’m sure it really is all that plus the $9M they get, but mostly the $9M.
By tonyhart7 2025-11-226:33 gotta add those "values" so the bidder got worth its money
By lloydatkinson 2025-11-2213:02 Made me want to vomit
By tacker2000 2025-11-229:29 Yea, would he have said the same for some old worthless TV program magazine?
By ls-a 2025-11-2210:47 Did Silicon Valley VCs give that comic its valuation?
By 1659447091 2025-11-225:501 reply Found a bit more on the story behind this copy
https://www.ha.com/heritage-auctions-press-releases-and-news...
By HelloUsername 2025-11-229:363 reply Funny how the time of day affects the visibility of posting on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46002609 :)
By swores 2025-11-2210:48 Time of day definitely plays a part, but there’s also luck/randomness to it.
Even the same time and same day of the week there will never be exactly the same set of users online, and that’s even more true with regard to the users who are choosing to look at HN’s /newest page. So pure luck can determine whether a bunch of comic book lovers see it soon after submission and give it enough votes to get on HN’s front page, or just a bunch of people who think it’s a boring story worth ignoring.
(Personally I thought it sounded like it might have interesting comments worth reading, hence my being here, but I wouldn’t have found it interesting enough to upvote if I were one of the people who saw it on the new submissions page.)
By 1659447091 2025-11-2220:50 > Funny how the time of day affects the visibility of posting
I have had that happen multiple times as well, but those are usually the ones I posted because I am interested in the thoughtful/knowledgeable comments that happen -- so it works out either way. I assume it's because my main source being BBC -- even though the website has a good variety of interesting (non-headline news) content that is well sourced/linked -- but also because I usually end up posting during odd/off-hours for US central. Think most of the ones I post that gain any traction had ended up in the 2nd chance pool.
This one was a bit of an anomaly for me on how quickly it picked up -- personally thought the one I posted before it was a little more interesting about Rolls-Royce finding ways to limit sand/dust from damaging jet-engines, but this here is Superman after all
By ChrisMarshallNY 2025-11-2210:561 reply I strongly suspect that a number of HN members have been training LLMs on HN headlines, then using these LLMs to recommend stories and times for submission. Maybe they have even set up the scripts to post submissions automatically.
That’s how we roll.
The results are likely to be that all HN front page stories will eventually be LLM-sourced.
I’m not entirely against that, if the scripts do a good job of selecting stories.
Hacker News is for human beings to share stories they find interesting so that other human beings can discuss those stories to gratify their intellectual curiosity. Automating that process with the goal of maximizing visibility and karma defeats the intended goal of the forum.
Not the actual goal, of course the actual goal of Hacker News for many people is gaming SEO and startup juice.
That said, I don't doubt for a second you're right. Trust a forum of tech bros and nerds to minmax away what little joy there is left to posting here.
By ChrisMarshallNY 2025-11-2211:24 Sadly, I agree.
I find most of the value, here, in the community commentary, though.
It’s fairly remarkable.
I do think people are trying to LLM that, as well, but not as successfully.
The actual actual goal is to promote Ycombinator to make money for pg.
By ChrisMarshallNY 2025-11-2211:51 I don't think it's that simple. It's my opinion that YC doesn't need much buzz, except within this very community. Since they own the venue, they get the benefit.
I think that a goal is to "cultivate" a startup community. Get nerds and tech bros together, and some synergy is bound to happen.
I'm not trying to start anything up, but I do enjoy the community. I'm not really what YC is looking for, but I suspect they like me, more than an LLM.
By WalterBright 2025-11-228:2310 reply I remember a painting was discovered, and there was speculation that it was a da Vinci. It was appraised at $30,000. If it could be proven to be a da Vinci, it would be worth a million.
For the same item.
Crazy.
Do you think a sculpture by a pre-civilization human is worth more than something banged out yesterday?
Heritage has great value. It is one of the few things that cannot be manufactured at will.
Also, since its uniqueness holds its value, its value becomes a "strange attractor". You can put a lot of money into one of these artifacts, fairly sure to get most or more back. Since future buyers will have a similar assurance. So it isn't money thrown away, but money stored in a medium the provides satisfaction and pride.
Not so different from buying real estate in some exclusive area for some crazy price. It really isn't that crazy if you are likely to get your money back later if you want. Likely at a higher amount due to a growing economy pushing prices up.
Crazy would be spending millions on something unique then grinding it up.
This is all a great way of describing why art works as a money laundering or tax evasion scheme.
Can you elaborate further on the tax evasion part? The money laundering part I can see since the value of art is subjective and volatile, but how does what OP said explain how art can be used for tax evasion?
By itronitron 2025-11-2222:071 reply The artwork is then given to a museum as a charitable donation for a tax write-off, or so the story goes.
By WalterBright 2025-11-2218:26 I've seen a lot of ancient art in museums. I have simply no desire to spend $$$ acquiring them simply because they are old.
I did buy some concrete gargoyles created by a local artist, probably a replica of one from a European church. I mounted them on the driveway entrance to scare away unwanted visitors.
By bryanrasmussen 2025-11-2210:12 Art as a tool for storing Mana: https://medium.com/luminasticity/art-as-a-tool-for-storing-m...
Is it crazy? Clearly the value is the proof itself, not the item, right? Certainly a genuine da Vinci is an investment you can very likely recoup and make a profit on. If I could buy one that’s proven, for a million, and I had a million sitting around, I would. That would be a smart move. The $30k non da Vinci, who knows, could be everything from love of art and total loss to perhaps a small profit. It depends on how good the remainder of the story is. Even for today’s working artists, the narrative is most often the important & valuable part, and the item is just a pretty artifact that backs up the story. For expensive collectible investment art, the importance of the narrative goes way up.
It’s interesting if you were thinking of the Salvator Mundi since the discrepancy between the initial appraisal and the restored sale price is two thousand times larger than your example. And it still goes to show the seemingly insane sale price was a good investment, first being sold for $80M by someone who knew he’d make a profit, then after that $120M, then $450M.
By georgefrowny 2025-11-2217:111 reply > Certainly a genuine da Vinci is an investment you can very likely recoup and make a profit on.
I.e. it's worth money because it's worth money.
Hehe, I like it. Yeah that’s a valid, if funny and tautological way to summarize it. I am arguing that the monetary value comes from the story attached something that’s unique, historical, famous, etc. The artifact itself didn’t change value when it was proven to be a da Vinci, a new and very valuable story was attached to it. Without the story/proof it really is worth less.
By georgefrowny 2025-11-2217:481 reply Yes but there has to be some kind of self-reinforcing circularity to the value of that story, or the price of a da Vinci would be roughly inflationary or even under it and therefore not a good investment. Da Vinci's story isn't substantially changing (and doesn't even have a bunch of aging, rich, nostalgic people at exactly the right age-wealth point relative to the material in question to drive prices like Superman) and there are only more famous people over time, so the percentage of all famous pointings taken by da Vinci will decrease. There are no new practical uses for paintings being discovered. While the older the work gets the more it is worth, it's 500 years old already, so even an extra 50 years is only a small increase in its relative historicity (0.2% per year, so well under the region of inflation)
Sure the claim that an artifact like a painting is valuable because it’s rare & famous is somewhat self-reinforcing, I agree. I also think it’s fair to call it circular in the sense that people investing and making a profit when they re-sell will cause more people to want to invest, and will drive the prices of collectibles higher. The value of a collectible is a social construct rather than a reflection of, say, skill or materials or cost to make, and so normal economics doesn’t really apply.
I’m not quite following the rest of your logic. Rare collectibles don’t often lose value after 70 years, there’s no reason I know of to suspect the ‘age-wealth point’ of the collector is particularly relevant. I’ve never heard of historicity nor seen anything collectible accrue value as a percentage of age, I don’t think markets for rare paintings work like that…? The idea of paying millions and millions for a collectible you can’t really use is foreign to most of us, so yeah it’s really weird and I can understand the feeling that it must be self-reinforcing.
I guess I’m maybe not even arguing for or against any of this, but maybe saying that given that markets for rare things exist, it does make sense that very rare+famous things bring higher prices, and that people who have money for this kind of speculation might see investment opportunity. I agree the “value” and market for these things is circular. All of the value comes from the “proof” that something is rare and collectible, purely from the story.
All this does apply a little bit to consumer goods, of course. We often have to remind ourselves that capitalist markets price things according to supply and demand, not necessarily to cost.
By georgefrowny 2025-11-2221:05 > there’s no reason I know of to suspect the ‘age-wealth point’ of the collector is particularly relevant.
All I mean is I think there's a bump around the time something particularly nostalgic intersects enough of the nostalgia-havers getting rich enough to bootstrap somes things into valuable-because-valuable territory. Comics, movies, etc. You could explain some of this Superman price that way, but you can't explain a recent increase in da Vincis, for example. I suspect quite at lot of 5/6 figure comic book sales that then bump the magic-number editions into the millions are buoyed by people who have done fondness for comics they had as children.
On the other hand, I think that eventually "the story" is merely an excuse for the price and whatever it is just valuable for the sake of being a member of a class of items that are demonstrably unique, irreplaceable and that can have particularly useful properties as a store of immense value. I really doubt that an Saudi prince dropping half a billion on a da Vinci, probably fronting for MBS, really gives a hoot about da Vinci's "story" at all other then his name underpins a really advantageous wealth store. I also doubt anyone else who might pay that and support the price does either.
There's an established, global industry based around curating what does and doesn't "count" for these purposes. NFTs obviously have massive parallels with paintings and comic editions in terms of provable uniqueness, attestable sale prices and clear ownership, but failed to convince the curators and break into the stratospheric market where it actually makes sense to assign value-due-to-value. Perhaps partly because proving the above points isn't a fully public process, but it's itself carefully gated by physical access and social connections.
By WalterBright 2025-11-2218:281 reply I'm not interested in speculating on art. It's far too risky for my taste. There's always a high risk of them being counterfeits. Verification by even top experts is pretty chancy.
By dahart 2025-11-2219:56 Oh I agree with you there 100%. That’s a different issue than having no proof at all, or no claim or story, right?
By garbthetill 2025-11-2211:481 reply The salvator mundi was bought at an auction for $1.2k, restored & appraised, then eventually sold for $450 million. The art/collection world is fascinate everything latches onto experts putting their reputation on the line, precious metals and gem stones make way more sense to me as their authenticity is undeniable for now
By Intermernet 2025-11-2212:561 reply Weirdly enough, precious metals and gem stones are only valuable because we agree they are. It's exactly the same as art, but with a lot less debate.
By 8bitsrule 2025-11-2221:52 Same thing with time ...
By georgefrowny 2025-11-2217:08 Supply of money in the hands of people needing a place to stash it: way up.
Numbers of famous historical artists: roughly constant, increasing very slowly
Definition of famous: defined by sale price of work.
Sale price: defined by fame
Ascent to the list of famous/high sale price artists: under control.
Club: big
Your status: ain't in it.
By andrepd 2025-11-2211:18 Maybe not the one you're thinking, but this is notable recent case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvator_Mundi_(Leonardo)
The attribution to Leonardo is extremely dubious, but the whole thing seems to have been motivated as yet another attempt to wash the reputation of oil theocracies and their monarchs.
By smt88 2025-11-2217:51 This isn't a great example because da Vinci was a famous historical figure and lived 500 years ago. Just the history of a real da Vinci is remarkable, regardless of the artistic merit.
A more interesting example would be a convincing fake purported to be painted by a highly regarded artist who's still living and working today, and this does happen, too.
By throaway1988111 2025-11-2222:40 Isnt it just cause more people want to own a da Vinci than a non-da Vinci, so therefore the price goes higher cause more people are willing to outbid the other?
By shbooms 2025-11-2215:18 this is true a lot in the world of paintings. there are regularly auctions where you can buy items "attributed" to (meaning it's speculated but not confirmed) very famous Modern Art painters like Van Gogh, Monet, etc for under $5,000 which, if confirmed, would send the valuation many multiples higher
By karmakurtisaani 2025-11-2211:221 reply Imagine some rich asshat at a pretentious cocktail party going
"I have a da Vinci at home."
Vs
(pointing at a picture on the phone) "I have this painting at home"
Which one impresses the other rich asshats more? Maybe even millions of dollars worth more.
By mr_toad 2025-11-2217:20 Perhaps not the best example, da Vinci was prolific, and you can easily pick up something of his for under $3k.
Let's say that I gift you a suitcase with ten thousand $100 bills that seem legit, but you're not sure. How much would you be willing to pay for a proof that they are indeed legit?
By WalterBright 2025-11-2218:211 reply It's a crime to pass counterfeit money. I'm not interested in that kind of trouble.
Besides, I don't need to pay to test for it being legit. Just go to a bank.
By falcor84 2025-11-2322:43 The legality does break the analogy, but my point was just that a suitcase with ten thousand $100 bills has a non-zero value on its own, but that proving its provenance would significantly increase its value, despite the suitcase staying the same. The argument then is that this is not unique to art - it's (financially) valuable for us to know who made an artifact and what its journey was until it got to us.
